


Insomnolents

by frogsteak



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst and Romance, Drama, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, Food, Found Family, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogsteak/pseuds/frogsteak
Summary: Present.Isa, a broken soldier caught in a small world, finds a stranded alien who fell off the moon on the day of the Dirge.Past.Lea has spent his life gathering machine parts to rebuild a machine of Old. Completing it was a pipe dream that turned into a nightmare.
Relationships: Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts), Aqua/Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts), Axel/Larxene (Kingdom Hearts), Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Elrena/Lauriam (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Larxene/Marluxia (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé/Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 21





	1. PRESENT: The City

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Lilo, my regal rascal. Rest in peace.
> 
> Beta Reader: [FaultyParagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaultyParagon/pseuds/FaultyParagon)
> 
> Big thanks to the KH Rogue Nebula for keeping the Big Bang alive and to my Beta Reader for her hard work!
> 
> Next chapter will be posted on Feb 13th.

  


*******

Mercy! thou dearest attribute of heav'n,

The attractive charm, the smile of Deity,

To whom the keys of Paradise are given—

Thy glance is love, thy brow benignity,

And bending o'er the world with tender eye,

Thy bright tears fall upon our hearts like dew,

And melting at the call of clemency,

We raise to God again our earth fix'd view,

And in our bosom glows the living fire anew.

\- “Prometheus” by James G. Percival

  


  


1

The City

Present

  


There was a fire sale at the Dream Store twice a year. Landscape packages mostly; open fields of rye, forests in the distance, sunsets on the beach and lots of flowers. Commentators on the website insisted there was something sinisterly Freudian about the dreams of bees pollinating flowers; they were certain the government was reaching into the minds of wounded soldiers to entice them into having babies and counter the dwindling population in the aftermath of an ugly civil war.

The notification for the sale activated a countdown. Isa sat huddled by his computer on a squeaky office chair. Wadding protruded from the edge of the seat, where he picked with his fingers. His picking had already created a hole in the seat; at this rate he’d be sitting on just the thin sheet of wood underneath come the end of the month. 

Isa could either keep digging, chew on his fingers, or rub on his lucky ring. It lay in a red jewelry box he had stolen from his sister, a pink, transparent ring with a dome. Inside, on a small patch of lime-green grass, were two corn cobs looking up, waving and hugging, with wide grins on their cartoonish faces. It was, by all accounts, an odd ring to hold onto. Childish, yes - more garbage than anything else - but amongst his few worldly possessions, this was one of his most prized ones. Isa put it onto his ring finger where it was loose enough that he could turn it when he fiddled with it. 

He watched the countdown’s green numbers shift as he hummed on an old tune he didn’t know the lyrics to. Four hours until noon. He went to the checkout with a cart full of landscape packages and the long-awaited update for _Hypnosis Voice_. Sum total: 2 500 gil. Download time: 4 minutes and 36 seconds.

Light barely cracked through the thick drapes hanging over the only window in his cluttered bedroom. The bed in the corner was no longer visible under layers of clothing he hadn’t used since the war ended. The sturdy bookshelf by the door was lined with empty cans of corn, spinach and peas all except for one shelf reserved for a tub for the canisters he needed for his inhaler. Tucked in the corner next to the closet and by the window, was the desk with a refurbished stationary computer he’d gotten as a welcome home gift. Cables slithered everywhere, some connected, with others just lost in the tangle. In front of the window was his most prized possession: a Canon 5D Mark III on a homemade tripod, perfect for pictures of the moon.

To anyone from the outside world, this was a dump, so Isa kept his door locked to live in peace. Everything he needed was right here.

With four hours to go, he still had plenty of time for work. The tabs were open; obscure and cute blogs of fashionable young women leading lives of fantasy. They updated almost every day, telling an indifferent world about their accomplishments. There, Isa found pictures of gorgeous shoes, adorable skirts and dresses that had been chosen with great care. Each picture looked unique, not easily found on any search engine. Those were the pictures Isa saved and later uploaded to his own blog.

The theme had taken hours to get right. The colors had to be pastel, soft colors that threatened no one and were as cute as his profile picture; a round-faced girl, late teens, pale complexion, rosy cheeks, a bob cut, dark hair with the sheen of silk. Isa tried to run his fingers through the viper’s nest that was his hair. He had a comb somewhere in his room. Probably in the mess of clothes.

He placed his slender fingers atop his keyboard and typed.

  


Went shopping today and got these shoes. Aren’t they cute?

_Upload picture. Post. ___

____

____

The comments came within minutes. They thought he was her. She had no deformity, no branded skin visible to the world. The compliments poured in along with invitations to friendships, earnest and malicious alike. Isa made no distinction between either. Both began and ended the same, and all he was interested in was the admiration they wanted to lure him with.

  


Read comment, 5 min ago

**ItsAWave**

I love them! They’re so hard to come by tho. Where did you find yours?

  


You replied, 4 min ago

**noIX**

They’re custom made :) Follow this  link

  


New comment, 2 min ago

**ItsAWave ******

********

********

The page won’t load. It just shows me the login page and won’t work even after I log in

  


ItsAWave had commented regularly since a week ago. The comments were always nice and short. The bunny icon was a plus. A quick search revealed that they lived in the wealthy neighborhoods in the inner city where only the families allowed in the DTTH lived. With luck, it was a dumb teenager who was connected to the household’s router.

Isa scrolled through the comments, leg shaking as he chewed on his forefinger. There were always cruel and crude comments. Those were the ones he should stop and interrogate, and he did, at the very end. He just had to sort the comments by best first. One bite for each like, and breakfast was fast approaching.

Someone knocked on his door. Isa froze.

“Isa?” said Aqua, his older sister. “I’m going out now. Do you need anything?”

Isa reached for his phone and texted:  _Milk._

“Got it. Please eat today, okay?”

Aqua lingered for a moment, her shadow playing against the light at the bottom of the door. When she got no response, she walked away with a sigh. Not until ten seconds after the door in the hallway slammed shut did Isa make a move for his door. 

Aqua had placed a tray with a variety of dishes right outside: rice, meat stew, mango curry, a salad of sugar peas and finely chopped red onion, and a slice of blueberry pie. Foods Isa had liked once upon a time. Isa took the salad and the hard rye bread by the stew before he closed and locked his door. Two locks, one chain.

Eating breakfast was a chore. Neither the rye bread or salad tasted of anything. It was nothing more than different textures moving around in his mouth as he chewed diligently. He didn’t want to choke. Not today.

The clock was approaching noon.  _Everyone to their battlestations, it’s go time_ . Isa put his helmet on. It was a biker’s helmet that had belonged to Terra long before he married Aqua. It was the closest Isa had to his army issued helmet that he had lost, so he made do.

Isa flipped down the visor and pulled his curtains apart, one hand on the camera. Twice a year, as sure as the fire sale at the Dream Store, the army overtook the streets to the sound of the Dirge. People dispersed and disappeared into any building nearby. Anyone who failed to move was apprehended. For two hours, twice a year the city was as empty as the moon.

Three.

Two.

One.

A loud, overwhelming Dirge echoed throughout the City. The windows shook, and the ones closer to the river almost always shattered. The sound seemed to distort the buildings; it fractured the waves in the river. Dust rose with the tremors.

Isa panned the camera and pulled up his visor as soon as it was safe. The Wheel of Energy, also known as the DTTH, loomed in the distance, like a second sun. It had a shiny black surface, light barely noticeable on its nodes and three-part rays. The Wheel was anchored to a plateau made of constantly shifting square blocks that cracked blue on stormy days. Underneath the plateau was the grand reverted staircase that led nowhere. It was made of huge black blocks, each step the size of the city center. The Dirge originated from there.

Isa stared at it, tried to figure out where the Wheel began and where it ended as if he’d ever seen it parted in two. The rays seemed to sway in the wind like heat off pavement. Its call always summoned monsters; it was always followed with death.

Many years ago, the Wheel had levitated over the City, loyal to its place by the Citadel and overlooking the Pillars of Existence which had been a massive waterfall by a crystal structure at the park. Isa loved that park where giants of the sea swam in deep aquariums where no human could reach them. An invasion had shattered the crystal structure and turned the old city center into a lake. The dirge of the dying giants had scared the Wheel away.

The Wheel began to wander until it was tethered to a round platform out by the river by a large structure with a finish similar to the Wheel. The platform was only accessible by two bridges; the new bridge littered with soldiers and the old Blue Ridge Bridge.

The sight of the second sun made Isa’s scars ache, it revived the flames and the dull ache that made his whole face numb. Isa shuddered and forced himself to look away. He took pictures of the empty basketball court with the crooked basket and the birch roots protruding through the concrete; of the old plaza with the marble cherub fountain that had gone gray and brown in the elements, leftover rain turned to sludge inside the fountain; and of the old monument erected by the last King, an angel of Light striking down one of Darkness, spear piercing through the heart, foot against his throat for Darkness to grovel in its last moments. The last picture he needed was of the Blue Ridge Bridge.

Isa panned the camera again, and for a few seconds, all he saw was green forest. Bushes shook as if they were caught in a typhoon. Isa lingered. Something wasn’t right. Judging by the coordinates, this was on a small island under Blue Ridge Bridge, Jurassica, known for the fossils of Microceratops. 

Isa held his breath, expecting to see the face of a feathered dinosaur long thought extinct. The green became red, and then, a face, contorted in a deathly struggle for air. 

A man’s face. Hands gripped at the red tie hanging from a branch. Red like the flesh that had held soulmates together; red like the blood that colored the umbilical cord; red like blinding fury that incinerated everything.

Isa dropped the camera with a groan, hands clammy and shoulders stiff. His blue bangs clung to his moist forehead. At the first wheeze, Isa stumbled back into his room. A row of cans toppled over when Isa bumped into his bookshelf and water splashed from the tub with the canisters. All three of them floated horizontally, like ships in rough water when Isa dug his hand in frantically for one canister. He shook the inhaler, put it to his mouth and breathed as deep as he could. Two pumps was all it took for the potent gases to open up his airways and rid him of the wheezing. 

Isa put his inhaler next to the tub. He looked at the spots of water around the cans that had fallen over, and decided that cleaning up that mess was a tomorrow-type of work.

The camera was heavy in his trembling hands as he positioned it back onto the tripod. The right coordinates were carved on the windowsill. They led to the toll gates on the Blue Ridge Bridge. No cameras were allowed within a radius of five miles in either direction. There were speculations as to why, but with these pictures, they’d know for sure.

Only five of the ten booths were manned, not with soldiers, but with entry-level policemen. Their condescending star badges could be seen from the moon. Isa moved the camera and saw the renovated layers of chain-linked fences with barbed wire at the end of the bridge. They had placed black boxes alongside the fence that seemed to emit heat or something else that distorted the air above them. Monsters pushed through there and became the splashed marks of crimson on the concrete, next to the bloated corpses of fallen novice cops.

As soon as the Dirge died, Isa pulled the curtains over his window and removed the helmet, his whole head damp with sweat. Three years ago a man had died in front of him. The details were foggy and warm and sticky like the flesh that had joined soulmates. He had decided then that the dying weren’t for him. They always came to visit him in his sleep, during inopportune moments when he paused and let his mind drift, between uploading pictures of Hello Kitty bags that weren’t his, and writing cutesy posts. It was the sole reason he was stationed here, and not at the frontlines, where men strapped themselves to bombs and colored their surroundings in red, pink and purple. The man dying on the island was an inopportune visitor.

The computer bleeped and he flinched. The Dream Store had added another offer, Pirate Island - four maps for only 5 000 gil.  A steal , Isa thought, and added it to the cart.

  


Isa skipped lunch and dinner. He couldn’t sit still, pacing instead of fighting the urge to pull his curtains open and look for the man that hung himself on Jurassica. Five thousand steps in, his pedometer beeped and celebrated with virtual confetti on its small screen. Pacing wasn’t proper exercise. He stood on the intended spot for sports in the middle of the room, where he could move without bumping into anything. With back straight, tummy and buttocks tight, Isa jogged on the spot. He got 10 000 steps in before bedtime. His stomach growled at the change of routine. He would’ve needed the throw-up bucket, had he eaten. Knowing Aqua, she’d thrown the bucket away as soon as Isa had parted with it. It had been army-issued for all cadets. Isa had forgotten his helmet, but not the throw-up bucket.

The buzzing of the computer fan died out slowly when he turned it off. Isa could hear the TV in the living room - yet another segment of breaking news. The alarmed voice had nothing nice to tell; its purpose was to spread tragedy around and urge people to stay inside, because monsters would always find a way into the City. 

Ten was bedtime. If he fell asleep any earlier than that, the Dream VR would shut down long before Terra left for work, and the dead loved to pay him a visit then.

  


Recommended use: max 4 hours per night.

  


Isa tapped his fingers against the black and slick side-pieces of the Dream VR. Four hours for a healthy sleeper, eight for those who preferred hypnosis over sleep, ten for those who wanted to sever the thin line between the realm of dream and waking. Surely, it was for those who made a habit out of it, not those who needed it once in a blue moon to escape demons.

The door outside in the hallway creaked open. Terra watched the news when Aqua went to bed. Impromptu visits were not commonplace, not with an unstable hermit in their midst. Isa approached his door slowly, heart pounding. The monsters were getting smarter, with so many years under their belt, they might have learned how to work an elevator and unlock doors.

“Terra!” said a raspy voice as amused as a drunkard at the height of inebriation. “I’ve got delivery.”

Isa knew that voice. It belonged to Terra’s coworker, a man with long, gray-streaked hair and one eye. Normally, he came around once a month, but with the approach of the Dirge, the frequency of visits had been on the rise. 

Isa rested his hand on the door knob and held it up as if one lock was all there was between them.

“What happened?” Terra asked as he made his way from the living room. He dug his heels into the floor with annoyance that came to an abrupt halt. “Aqua!”

“Your hocus pocus is growing weaker.”

“Shut up, Xigbar. Just tell me what happened.” Terra shuffled away from Isa’s door and into the hallway.

“She picked up where she left off by stealing credentials. The Wheel actually moved this time. It’s been a while since it’s taken any commands.” Xigbar paced, his full brogue Oxford dress shoes made a tapping sound against the laminate floor like the flaps of old countdown clocks.

“Did she find anything?”

“She’s found plenty and it’s a problem. Intel says we’ve got monsters coming in from the east and there’s only one way there are any openings there. So you either fucking fix her and do it properly or she’s signed her own death warrant. We don’t have room for any more fuck-ups.” Xigbar punctuated each word like he’d said it countless times before.

“If she dies, we’ll never find the missing Core.”

“At the rate she’s going, we’ll all die before we find the missing Core. If I get the orders, I’ll pop one right between her eyebrows. Nothing personal, friend. Just business.”

The door slammed shut. Isa pressed his ear to the door hearing only the rustling of Terra moving, and then, the heavy steps down the corridor. At no point did he hear Aqua’s voice. 

Isa let go of the door knob. He had his hand on the chain, convinced he’d unlock his door one lock at a time to see where Terra was taking her. But his hand remained in place until he stepped back on wobbly knees. There were many reasons he wasn’t at the frontlines, Cowardice was just one in a line of many.

Isa grabbed the Dream VR and shoved his closet door open. The closet was padded with pillows of memory foam duct taped together and glued to the walls. A small LED-screen tucked into the closet wall turned on at the signal of the VR once Isa switched it on and positioned himself in a bed of layers upon layers of bubble wrap. His pillow kept his head at a forty-five degree angle, perfect for the light of the LED-screen to crack through the small space between the VR-glasses and his cheeks. The headphones were heavy and covered the shell of his ears, drowning the sound of the news from the living room.

  


DREAMLIGHT INC.

The Dream of Your Dreams©

  


You have (10) new Dream Sequences installed.

  


The VR read his eye movements. Isa did nothing for the Gold Rye sequence to start. He stood out on a field of golden rye surrounded by a blurry forest in the distance that prattled in the soft breeze. Ahead were three grand oaks in separate circles of dirt: love, money and knowledge. Whatever the Dreamer chose next shaped the rest of the sequence. Isa lingered in the field, rye reaching up over his knees. Fifteen seconds in, the sky darkened from bright gold to a warm lager brew. Three lines lit up at his feet and parted to light up the way to the three oaks, but Isa kept waiting until the rye started to bleed corns of glittery light that levitated and disappeared.

“Safe mode,” Isa said, and corn and rye became pixelated.

Five paces forward and ten paces right, where the space between the rye was wider and the edges of the pixelated light shone an ominous red, is where the IP-address was: 24.513.14.119.

A touch and the sequence flickered. Isa closed his eyes with it, and once back online, he was no longer in safe mode. An array of IP-addresses filled the field of rye, each choosing one of the three oaks for sweet dreams. Then it flickered again.

  


  


Search initiated.

  


Searching…

Law Enforcement Activity (5)

  


Searching…

Local Environment Agency (2)

  


Search cancelled.

Connecting...

  


Isa shook his head and blinked in quick succession. The search window disappeared with a bloop.  _Just a glitch._ The system was uncompromised and the IP-addresses intact. The mission was to find a way into the DTTH, and so far, there was only one person who’d reached out from the inner city with possible access to the Wheel: ItsAWave. 

They’d given Isa their credentials through the phishing site he’d linked them to for the cute shoes. Isa walked forward through the dense vines of numbers in search for ItsAWave. With enough prodding and hacking, the system could last for two additional hours and he’d be able to upkeep his sacred routine.

ItsAWave chose the Tree of Love. Isa hooked himself to the IP-address with ease before the field of rye became blocks of electric blue that cascaded to the sides and revealed the waiting world behind the Tree of Love.

Skyscrapers rose as high and stood as closely as bamboo. Parade lights lit up the tiled streets. A live band played a jazzy tune on the plaza ahead, crowned with a marble cherub fountain, water trickling down to its sides in a lotus formation. Down the main street, between the tile and the flower beds, stood low and decorative metal containers holding burning coal, the flames low and an intense red. This was the inner city before the conflict.

ItsAWave took the shape of their avatar: a young woman in a woolly pink coat wrapped around her petite frame, dark skinny-jeans, sand-colored Uggs and a red knitted scarf around her neck, her thick blonde hair tucked inside. Each item cost a fortune and was only available through proper channels. Anyone who dared to infringe on copyright in Dream VR best not be attached to worldly things, for the price was steep.

“Happy New Year!” yelled a man in a fluffy bear suit. He stood surrounded by colorful balloons and a sign around his neck that said ‘Free Hugs.’

Isa hurried after the avatar through the picturesque scene he had seen many times before. Usually the trigger happened by the fountain. A NPC masked as a customized Prince and/or Princess Charming swooped in with either a romantic pick-up line or stumbled in with pair of two left feet that always led to a once in a lifetime love story. It was good for beginners. Connoisseurs went for the bigger maps. 

The avatar passed the trigger, steps brisk. She turned by the cotton candy kiosk, as if the map for the Tree of Love was infinite. Running up against a wall mid-dream was jarring enough, but Isa had no idea what it would do to a hop-on like himself. He ran to catch up with her.

“Hey! Wait!” he called and reached his hand out to grab her arm.

ItsAWave stood halfway through the line where the wall should be, frozen like a paused video. The jazzy tune glitched as if on a short A-B repeat loop.

“Shit…” Isa fidgeted. “Escape.”

  


Search initiated.

  


Searching…

Law Enforcement Activity (5)

  


Searching…

Local Environment Agency (2)

  


Search cancelled.

Connecting…

  


When the search window closed again, the avatar was further down the road, walking with purpose until the short and narrow road became yet another plaza. Another glitch, surely. The jazzy tune was a beckoning to stay on the map he knew, but it had been a week since his last report and a hefty sum of income came with the pictures of the Blue Ridge Bridge. Enough to make up for his penchant for cute accessories.

The music died when Isa stepped over the boundaries of the map. No step he took made a sound. The corridor between the original map and the new one was a cut up image, copy and pasted and arranged to look like antiquated brick buildings on a narrow brick road, programmed with the stability of a newborn fawn. 

Isa ran across the corridor. His foot snagged against uneven terrain and he tumbled into the new map; a plaza with tiled ground, colorful lighting, a cherub fountain, cotton candy and decorative metal containers with burning coal. It was all the same but later at night. The sky was covered in fireworks drawn with crayon.

Isa didn’t move from where he sat on the tiles. The jazzy tunes were replaced with a melancholic acoustic guitar, a prominent bass and a slow beat.

“Where’s the bear?” he found himself asking.

ItsAWave stood facing the fountain, arms across her chest as if embracing herself.

“I haven’t drawn him yet,” her voice was thick. “Do you know where you are?”

“In a dream. Your dream.”

Majestic flowers - King Proteas - bloomed and died at her feet.

“We have a finite amount of tears,” she said. “Pain is finite too. The worst of it is when you’re poised in the middle of apathy and agony and you oscillate between the two like a pendulum that’s gone awry.”

“I don’t - I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Isa backed away as if her words would have less of an impact with distance between them. His heart skipped a beat.

“Finite amount of tears, finite pain, so why won’t it stop?” She cried.

ItsAWave turned around and Isa flinched. Her face was round like a ball, shiny like varnished wood, face carved and filled with pastel colors, some of which spilled down her cheeks as she wept. She tilted the upper half of her face back to open her mouth until her jaw clicked like the button on a tape recorder. The voice wasn’t hers, but belonged to the invisible band.

“ _I started a joke, which started the whole world crying..._ ”

The fireworks screeched their way to the hand-drawn night sky and exploded in chopped frames, the smell of the smoke lingered and entwined with the cotton candy and the burning coal. Isa pursed his trembling lips. The cold air made his nose and throat ache until his eyes watered and he wept.

“ _I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing…_ ”

“Stop,” Isa sobbed. He struggled to stand up, legs as stable as that of a newborn fawn. The distance between them was small and overridden with crude programming, each error popped up in the shape of purple pansies. There were a dozen different things Isa could have done, but the song was sprouting roots in his bones, blooming and cascading like wisteria flowers in his head until he wept small, blue petals.

Isa sprinted. He tackled the avatar to the ground, and they fell soundlessly together, drowned out by the song. The wooden head didn’t crack against the tiles no matter how many times Isa slammed the head against them. Breathless, chest bruised with sobs, nose stuffed with petals and tears, Isa grabbed each end of the red scarf.

“ _‘Till I finally died, which started the whole world living…_ ”

The scarf cut into the avatar’s pale skin and turned it red, white and then purple. The body convulsed. Perfectly manicured nails dug into Isa’s forearms, scratching and struggling until he bled. The song faded in and out like an old and worn out tape. Isa pulled the scarf tighter and bunched it around his hands. He didn’t stop until he heard another click and the song stopped.

“Oh, if I’d only seen,” Isa hummed and snivelled as he dropped his sore hands to his side, “that the joke was on me…”

None of this was real. Yet, the soft merino wool against his fingertips made his heartbeat thump in his gums and the rye bread became a ghost in the back of his throat. He lowered his gaze and it was just a glimpse. The red of the hair splayed against the tiles knocked the air out of him. The lifeless emerald green, the cracked pale lips and the crimson splattered upon them - Isa tumbled, tumbled and tumbled forward, never once hitting the ground.

*******

  


The crackling of the bubble wrap popping in his grip startled Isa awake. He pulled off the VR, dry heaving as he grasped for the closet door and managed to pull it open in time to grab the bike helmet. He had nothing in his system, but bile, snot and tears splashed against the inside of the helmet anyway. Isa slid against the laminate flooring even with his knees and feet bare, toes digging in and trying to find anchorage against the violent heaving. By the time he was done, his spine felt like loosely stacked rocks held in place by God’s grace.

Isa staggered across his bedroom for a box of napkins. He blew his nose and wiped his eyes, fixated on his window. The curtains were pulled open on only two occasions: at the Dirge and at full moon.

The sunrise colored his orange curtains bonfire.

The world outside didn’t exist at this hour. It hadn’t for the past three years. With the helmet out of commission and no visor to shield his eyes, he’d come out of this blind, or worse, he’d melt in the heat. Isa turned on his camera. The comforting sound of the lens focusing helped him breathe.

One swift move, and he had pulled the curtains aside. There was no time to lose. He knelt by his camera and searched the river for Jurassica. It stood in a sliver of light under the Blue Ridge Bridge in serene waters. On its sandy beach, round like a cove, stood the mess of red in a grey suit that was much too small. Isa smiled and chuckled nervously with relief and zoomed in closer to watch this stranger pace the beach with a stick in his hand.

Isa chewed on his thumb, fingers light on the shutter.  _Click, click, click._ He’d only print one, he made himself promise, just to document the momentaneous despair on the stranger’s face that looked so much like the one tormenting Isa.

“What are you doing?” Isa asked the stranger when he dragged the stick over the sand and then stomped along the lines he made.

  


H E L P

  


Isa mouthed the word written on the beach, each breath coming easier. Jurassica Island was 300 meters from the mainland, and the Liu River, though turbulous at times, reaped only its victims during floodings. He wouldn’t even have to swim, just let the currents drift him back ashore if that’s what he wanted, unless he couldn’t cross running water.

“Dear diary,” Isa said out loud as he took pictures, “I saw an alien today. He fell off the moon and almost strangled himself on his safety harness. But he’s okay now and is trying to make contact. I think… I need more information-”

A knock.

“Isa?” said Aqua. “Do you need anything?”

Isa reached for his cellphone and texted: _I was sick._

“Can you put it outside to clean?” she sighed and tapped her fingers against the dresser. “I’ll go wait in the kitchen.”

The helmet stood by the closet. He could’ve snuck out later and washed it himself, but parts of the dream lingered, and they could only be shaken off in one way. Isa waited for the sound of the kitchen door closing before he went and picked up the helmet. He unlocked his door and left it where Aqua so lovingly left her tray of homemade breakfast and lunch every morning.

Isa sat down by the window, nursing his camera when Aqua banged on the door.

“Isa!” her voice cracked. “What the  _fuck_ is this? Isa!”

He couldn’t hear her rage because a song whose lyrics he didn’t know had taken root in him, and from where he sat shielded behind curtains of wisteria flowers, he solely had eyes and ears for the only other castaway he had known.

  



	2. PAST: The Village

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betareader: FaultyParagon
> 
> Next chapter will be uploaded on Feb 21st. (Forgot my upload date last week!)
> 
> ***

2

The Village

Past

  


  


Lea sat outside his tin shack on a wobbly plastic chair, holding a pair of binoculars firmly against his eyes like a pirate scouting for land. Today marked the third day Roxas hadn’t come by. His absence came with insisting nausea that no Spam in the world could ease. The world was an ugly place, prone to rip kindhearted people away in merciless manners. Lea fought tooth and nail to keep Roxas off the world’s radar.

Lea shook his leg impatiently, searching the road all the way to the Village. The outskirts were full of children scavenging for food in the mud. Lucky ones found a maggot or two. The ruthless ganged up on the lucky ones. 

The Village was a shantytown north of the City, placed outside the City’s high and grotesque walls. The Village was a thirty minute bike ride from Lea’s tin shack. It lay out by the outskirts of the wastelands ironically called the Green Zone. The Village sat in a small crater prone to floods and stale puddles; a pot perfect for shit stew. Lea avoided it at all costs. He could count on one hand the times he’d gone there since the age of fifteen. 

Doves and rats were scarce this time of year, and Roxas never ventured outside the Green Zone. Three days without a visit meant he had no food, or worse, he’d succumbed to the counts and lords offering feed as bait.

Lea thumbed on the edge of a tin can with Spam and pickled onion on his lap. It was the last of his latest bounty. The mere sight of the colorful blue banner against the white background with an image of greens and pickled onion and Spam was enough for Lea to salivate. He pulled a folded four-pack of jerky from his back pocket. He held it to his nose and inhaled deeply. The scent took the worst of the edge off.

Roxas hadn’t come by for a reason. Lea ran through a whole list of them. Broken bones, kidnapping, starvation, food poisoning. All of them were better than what was most likely; sleepwalking in the desert. Roxas had been having vivid nightmares lately. Olette said she tied him to herself in case he wandered off into the night, Hayner slept by the door and Pence had found a string of bells to hang on the window. But Roxas had made it out, sleepwalking, his feet raw after a few hours in the harsh desert, lips purple with cold. Lea would have to make a detour to the Village before work to make sure Roxas hadn't wandered off into certain death.

Lea clicked his tongue at the binoculars that saw no further than the misery of the children searching for food.

He went to his workshop, a small, secret, thirteen-by-thirteen foot room stacked with stuff he’d found scavenging the high piles in the Yellow Zone. A chopped, medium-sized stump stood in the middle of the room, Lea’s chair, and on the table of mismatched wood in front of the stump, was the invention that would immortalize him: the Metal Bird Grabber. The machine was a mess of cables and old parts in various colors, all shaped like a helmet. The only esthetically pleasing parts of it were the black and slick side-pieces. At the right height and with enough battery power it could get in drone footage which was particularly useful for ventures into the Yellow Zone. 

Lea put it on.

A screen flickered before his eyes. If there were any Metal Birds near the Village, he might get their signal and steal their eyes. One soared above the Prison, south of the Village. Lea lingered on it. The silhouette of the Village became visible at the first turn. A miserable place unfit for humans. Lea chewed on his fingers. Roxas lived in the outskirts near the Wall.

“Where are you?” Lea mumbled, hoping for somebody to appear on the screen.

The Metal Bird turned again, loyal to its designated path, and with it came the faint sound of sirens.

Lea put the helmet away and turned it off. Sirens didn’t have to mean anything. Normally, they wouldn’t mean anything, not until Lea had decided to be a friend and share a secret. The secret. He had shown Roxas his workshop. The one that was full to the brim with stolen materials and resources, with his inventions, things that would have him killed should the police ever find out; chief among those things was a priceless mechanical doll.

The Village was full of ears and empty pockets, any one of Roxas’ neighbors could’ve overheard him talking about Lea’s findings. Any one of Roxas' friends could've decided that money was worth more than Roxas' friendship. It was known to happen. Lea had experienced it, and yet, on that day, he'd let his guard down, and shared his secret.

The sun tinted the sky orange when Lea pulled his bent blue bike out and checked the attached bags at the front and the back. The tin can of Spam went into the bag on the steering wheel, wrapped in a ragged hemp towel. 

Autumn rain made roads muddy. The road downhill was rough and slippery. A sensible part of him told him to turn back and go to work instead. Radioactive scraps were preferable to the foul memories that lay buried in the mud, shit and piss of the Village. Roxas was reliable, a promise was a promise was a promise. But Lea had been down that road. Trust was a luxury item. Nothing a Scrapper could afford, especially not with the interest his findings would attract.

Lea’s precious doll sat under a tarp in his workshop on a second trunk, hidden away in the darkest corner like a testament to committed sins: a metal doll without a face, without a Core. Lea had found a Core for it once many years ago, but it had been stolen, so the metal doll remained hidden, faceless and incomplete. 

Any complete set or parts of the Old Technology were to be returned to Insomnia Group. Scrappers that did were handsomely rewarded, none more so than those who found Cores. Failure to cooperate with the Group was a certified death sentence.

The sirens were clear. They echoed from across the Village. Lea veered away from the children, fearful that they would catch the scent of the Spam. Their penetrating gaze, runny noses, and rags for clothes was like looking straight at his past self. They were orphans because nobody wanted them. Nobody had wanted him. The sight made him nauseous. 

Lea gripped the handles of his bike until his knuckles shifted white. _I've grown into somebody_ , he reminded himself, a Scrapper, and somebodies did not deal with nobodies, especially those prone to dying.

Lea pedaled faster and harder through the thickening mud, earning curses and swears from the villagers in his path. There were more tin shacks now than there had been back then, but other than that, everything was exactly the same: the plaza with the marketplace and child-sized cages and crates for valuables, the rusty building in front of it with the large misspelled sign that said ORFANAGE, and even the first mini-mart was the same, with old man Ben seated on a plastic stool, more duct tape than actual plastic, fiddling with the radio to catch the latest news from the City. 

_Nobodies, the lot of them._

Roxas lived with Hayner, Pence and Olette in a small shack near the north main road. Olette braided straws of sunburnt grass and hung them on the door. A housewarming decoration that was also for sale at five gil each. 

Lea searched for it as he struggled through the small alleyways. He saw the police cars first; mismatched old sedans with the rusted silver letters D SUN in the front. The cars were fit for four but the cops fit at least ten in each. Clown cars. As much nightmare-fuel as any other clown.

Lea froze.

“Search the area. The professor was seen around these parts before he went AWOL.” The man giving the order wasn’t a cop. He was dressed entirely in black, a fitted suit with shades to match. Cops wore dark blue jumpsuits patched to oblivion using the jumpsuits of deceased cops. The man in black, long dark hair streaked with gray, hadn’t seen a patch in his life.

“Kids say they haven’t seen ‘im,” said the man in a jumpsuit next to the other, his face a map of scars.

“So who do we believe, officer? Greedy brats who’d sell one another for a hot dog or the unbiased footage of the drones?”

“The, the drones, sir. Of course.”

“Take the blond in for questioning.”

“Not all of them?”

“Did I stutter?”

“Right away, sir!”

The order started the commotion inside. Lea pulled one foot from out of the mud. The intention to intervene was there. One foot in front of the other would get him there, but the last interaction with cops was much too fresh in his mind. The phantom pains in his recently healed shin anchored him to the ground. It had taken six months. Six long painful months; food scarce, water scarce, heat scarce.

“Let him go!” Olette yelled.

“Don’t touch me, you spineless toad!” Roxas protested.

Five cops dragged a kicking-and-screaming Roxas out of the shack. Each step was a struggle because Hayner, Pence and Olette fought tooth and nail. The batons only seemed to encourage them to escalate. They bit where the patches on the jumpsuits were worn, scratched wherever they could reach. But the cops got Roxas into the car and left them in a cloud of dark smoke.

Lea stared wide-eyed.  _Roxas is a somebody. Roxas is a somebody. Roxas is a somebody. ___ _ _ He could’ve run after the car, grabbed onto something, anything, to get Roxas out of the cops’ filthy grip. But he remained motionless until the sirens died out. __

____

__

Lea looked around and staggered back. No one was present to witness this slip of his true colors. If no one saw it, he didn’t need to answer for it. He’d be more than glad to lie to himself. _Next time_ , he thought. Next time he’d put himself between Roxas and whatever imminent danger they were faced with.

Lea dug for the wrapped tin can he’d brought with trembling hands. He left his bike in the mud to make the last few feet on foot. He rounded the shack, cautious of whatever could be watching from above when he climbed in through the back window, covered with black plastic bags and the bells on a string. The ground was a mess as if they’d turned every inch upside down. What little furniture they had was intact aside from a braided carpet Lea had gifted them. It was missing.

“What happened?” Lea asked when the three came back in.

“They took Roxas again,” Olette said, eyeing Hayner.

“What for?” Lea wiped his nose with the back of his hand. It was going to be tough to get anything out of them. The older the kids got, the better the lies and the scheming became. Everything they said was calculated, the pros weighed against the cons, all of it translated to knowing glances to mark who was part of the group and who wasn’t.

“Don’t know,” Pence shrugged. He lowered his head, pursing his lips

“Because of me?” Lea prodded.

“Uhm…” Olette began. She nudged Hayner discreetly, seemingly annoyed by his silence. “Maybe?”

“Hayner?” Lea turned to the oldest of the three. Hayner moved away from Olette and paced in circles, too quiet for someone always eager to get their two cents in.

“We haven’t voted yet,” Hayner said. “We - they, they came, and we didn’t get to vote…”

“What’s he talking about?” Lea took a deep breath to keep his hands from shaking. Any violent reaction would wreck what small trust he’d earned, but if they were anything like he’d been at that age, it would be enough to at least get them to speak some truth. “What’s happening?”

“We should tell him,” Olette said and pulled on her bangs as if that would keep her from speaking.

“Roxas said not to,” Pence whispered. He panted and shook the front of his shirt for air.

“They’re gonna bring the dogs… and when they do, we’ll be made into Spam,” Hayner told his friends.

“You’re scaring me,” Lea cut in. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. What if there wasn’t a next time for Roxas?

“Do you get sick easily?” Olette asked.

“Just unearth the guy,” Pence said. He rubbed his chubby face.

“Close the door,” Hayner said at last, defeated. 

Pence hurried to the latch.

All three dropped to their knees and began to dig like feral dogs. Under a good four feet of mud and gravel was a chest - half cardboard box, half compressed wood - full of nonsensical symbols. Lea hugged his wrapped tin can of Spam when he saw his house-warming gift, the carpet, sticking out from the sides. 

The three made teamwork out of removing each layer inside the chest that would’ve been best left alone. Lea pressed one hand against his nose and mouth at the reveal of a hellish fiend. A corpse. The body was a mixture of purple and black. The eye sockets seemed hollow, cheek bones prominent when skin and bone were all there was. The mouth was shaped around a scream, hands clutching the face as if the mummification had been instant.

“What the fuck is that?” Lea stood leaning against the wall, hand still firmly in place over nose and mouth.

“A doctor from the City - from the vaccination group,” Olette said mournfully. “He died this morning.”

The brown-nosing doctors with their endless questions and never-ending needles to protect them from newly discovered diseases of which there were newer ones every year. With all their supposed help, people were still dying. Lea had tried to convince Roxas to maintain his distance, certain they weren’t patients of these doctors, but their guinea pigs. 

Lea made a face at the dimensions of the corpse. 

“No fucking way. That’s been dead and buried for-fucking-ever and it looks sick and contagious. Put it back under.”

“Roxas did him in somehow,” Pence said, sweating buckets. “The doctor’s been visiting for a couple of days now. Said he needed blood samples to check our health. Before we knew it, it was like someone took a straw to him and sucked him clean out.”

“H-how’s - how’s that Roxas’ fault?” Lea sank to the ground. How many times had he asked - begged - Roxas not to let anyone from the City in? No good would come of it. On the few occasions Roxas bothered to counter Lea’s request, he’d say they had all voted to let the kind doctor in. Majority rules.

“We don’t know for sure that it is,” Hayner said, exasperated. “He was testing Roxas when it happened. The screams must’ve alerted the neighbors, y’know, scared them shitless.”

“Who was screaming? The guy?” Lea asked. “Maybe it’s a set-up.”

“Us! We were screaming!” Hayner pulled his hair at Lea’s suggestion. “He just up and almost vanished right before our eyes. We’re in so much shit right now. So. Much. He’s a rich guy from the City, Lea. They’re gonna clean us out. They already have Roxas.” Hayner’s voice quivered and he snivelled. “What are we gonna do?”

Lea pulled the rag from the tin can and breathed into it.

“This is for you by the way.” Lea put the tin can down. “Spam. Made of offal as far as I know. Save some for Roxas.”

“Roxas’ in prison, Lea!” Olette said, flailing in frustration.

“I know! Alright? I know…” Lea began, “just, let me think for a second… I… look, I’ll take him. The horror show you’ve got in the box there, I’ll pack him up, toss him in the Yellow Zone. No one has to know. And then,” Lea paused for breath, “then I’ll get Roxas out. Easy. We’ve gotten him out before. We’ll do it again. We just - first - we have to deal with that.”

“How are you gonna get him out of the Village unseen?” Hayner asked.

“Crack him to pieces like rye bread,” Lea said solemnly and approached the body.

“That could work,” Olette agreed urgently.

“Let’s get to it then,” Pence said. “The dogs Hayner mentioned could be on their way right now.”

The doctor was disturbingly easy to pull out of the box. He was hollow like a rotten trunk, fragile like a sheet of ice. He shattered like glass with one drop against solid ground. Hayner turned away first, heaving. Pence lingered for longer, but the frayed ends of the upper left arm were too much, and he stepped away, face white.

“Yeah, go away now that we race against time,” Olette shook her head in disbelief as she gathered the pieces up like kindling.

“I have to pull my bike up back.” Lea dusted off human remains from his hands against the legs of his pale green and padded jumpsuit. He had tied the sleeves around his waist to not sweat too much on his way over here; a futile effort now that he could feel the sweat stains in his armpits and on his back.

Olette had ripped the carpet to tie the body parts together in neat packages when Lea climbed back into the shack. She had purple dust all over her clothes, hands and lower arms. Lea pressed her hand down with one finger when she went to rub her forehead.

“Get cleaned. Don’t breathe too much in here. Air this place out once I leave and... find water. There were some puddles up east, hell, even river water might be better than whatever this purple shit is. Just don’t inhale it. Please.”

Olette nodded slowly.

In pieces, the man fit in Lea’s bags like a glove. The main road would have to do to avoid contaminating the whole Village with what the doctor had become, a purple husk easily made into a fine dust. For all the dirt and grime that existed in the Village, dust was uncommon, all thanks to the sandstorm that had blown in from the Yellow Zone after the Devil had left for the City. The lucky ones had died; others coughed their lungs to smithereens over time. Only those who had been wise enough to not be drawn in by the red hue of the storm and sought shelter inside were spared the hellish cough.

Well outside the Village, when the large piles of the Yellow Zone peaked from behind a sand dune, Lea pulled out his dosimeter and switched it on. He ran it over the remains.

If this instant mummification was a new type of outbreak, he’d have to inform everyone. The villages out west were abandoned after the Swollen Neck syndrome became prevalent in children. The City redrew the lines after that incident and made it only legal for Scrappers to rummage through the piles for materials wanted by the Insomnia Group. Meanwhile, the Green Zone had only grown smaller.

The dosimeter didn’t react to the remains.

“Okay,” Lea exhaled. At least it wasn’t radioactive. “Let’s hope you’re a unique freak of nature, buddy.”

Lea put his jumpsuit on properly and zipped it all the way up. From his breast pocket, he pulled out a makeshift mask and put it over his nose and mouth, adjusting the band for the mask to sit tight. He tied his hair into a neat double-folded ponytail and put a dark green cap over it. He pulled it all the way down over his ears. The gloves came on last. 

Safety hadn’t always been a priority. He’d walked these lands long before he knew why they were off-limits. The patrolling Metal Birds had been a challenge not a deterrent. The admission fee had proven, more than once, to be steep, but Lea had yet to pay for it with his health. He intended to keep it that way.

The dosimeter crackled louder as soon as Lea pushed his bike under a loose piece of fence and into the Yellow Zone. It was a copper-colored wasteland. Vegetation was scarce up until the border to the Red Zone where poisonous trees grew in dense packs. The oddest thing to grow in patches were large pink and white flowers. Its layered petals were shaped like blades; they surrounded a thick white bulb. They grew in the blood of those who had fallen victims to the Metal Birds.

“No one survives in the Garden of Eden” said a rugged sign past the Red Zone where the road ended abruptly and became a vast field of waist-high grass. Lea had been tempted to touch it more than once, to wade in and see where it led, but the relentless alarm of the dosimeter allowed for only a quick glance at the greenery before Lea’s courage dropped to nothing. 

Chain-linked fences had been put up as reinforcement of the border a few years back where the trees left openings. Monsters had a tendency to trickle in where the borders were weak, and should the Metal Birds ever fail to shoot them down, the Village would be made to the first line of defense. Lea rarely ventured that far out anymore. Not since he had seen patches of the chain-linked fence peeled back like a can lid.

Lea shoved the bags of human remains in the orifices of random piles. The City Guard wouldn’t venture out here for the King himself let alone for some random doctor interested in the health of the villagers. 

The doctor hadn’t worn anything of value, Lea realized as he pushed in a stubborn piece of leg. No rings, no necklace or earrings. A wallet would’ve protruded like morning wood, but there had been none. A doctor was wise, not like counts and lords who had to flaunt their wealth at every opportunity. He must’ve left everything of value at home. If Roxas and the others were smart enough to bury the body before the cops came, surely they were smart enough to not hang onto anything else of his that was identifiable. Surely.

“Fuck sake,” Lea breathed.

The Village was too far away to do anything about it now. Streetwise kids knew to at least wait for the dust to settle before selling anything stolen off a fresh corpse. 

Roxas’ situation was more urgent. However many strikes one person was entitled to before getting the noose, Roxas was well beyond that. Lea needed bargaining power and he’d already given away his last can of Spam. If he used the faceless doll, they’d just take it and give him a noose, too.

He ran back to his bike and dug out a small turquoise radio from it. It was old and useless where no radio waves from the City could reach them, but Lea had been tampering with it. The radio helped him find valuables.

Lea pulled the antenna as far as it would go and walked with it to spots where the white noise crackled and became faint words, sung in a broken melody. He had followed it before, to the pieces he needed to finish the doll. With luck, the melody would lead him to something valuable, something worth more to the cops than keeping Roxas. 

Lea stepped forward slowly with the hope that the song would grow stronger, but the crackle kept disappearing, and turning to white noise. Lea retraced his footsteps until he could hear something again. This went on for hours, a desperate dance around the hundreds of piles full of rusting garbage. He almost stepped into the pathways of the Metal Birds whirring around the area, but the familiar sound of a charging barrel urged him to hide behind a particularly loud pile. 

Lea switched off the sound of his dosimeter.

Two piles to the south, where the rustling of the trees was visible past two broken windows in a run-down brick house, the song grew clearer.

“I st… joke…”

Lea climbed up one pile and held the radio up toward the top while he found anchorage on old car parts.

Batteries trickled down the pile like cockroaches whenever Lea moved something. It made Lea’s fingers itch. Normally he’d put each battery he found in a series of boxes in case they bust open and began to bleed their poisonous contents into the earth. Considering the wasteland he walked, it was too little too late, but maybe, he thought, if he put some effort into it, there’d come a day when this side of the Wall could match that which was on the other side.

The melody held his attention when it grew clearer. At one point, the crackling disappeared. The distorted voice became human, each word’s meaning strengthened by the accompanying instruments Lea imagined coming from a backup choir of other humans whose voices could be distorted to make different sounds, like birds.

Carefully, Lea moved bits and pieces to find whatever made the radio sing. If it slipped and fell through the cracks, he’d be here all night disassembling the work of decades.

A particular sound popped from the radio’s speaker when Lea found a dark, small bag of thick and sturdy material, like he’d run a magnet over the song and managed to bend it as he pulled the bag out.

Lea slid down the pile and opened the bag as soon as he touched the ground. Titanium coated key-rex screws, six of them. They were used to keep a Core in place. Each Core had a unique set.

“Jackpot?” he laughed and stepped back, ready to run back to his bike when a blue line lit up on the ground.

Lea took cover. It had been a year since the Metal Birds had been updated. The City might know something the Outside didn’t, that a new outbreak was incoming, one that would leave few survivors if it was as instantaneous as Hayner, Pence and Olette had described it. This could be updated weaponry; a certified way of shooting and killing sick villagers. But the light came without any whirring or loading barrels. 

The blue line began with the bag in Lea’s hand and corrected the path to point south whenever Lea moved. It led to the red brick house far down the narrow point of the Yellow Zone near the chain-linked fence.

The radio was nothing but white noise until Lea moved it across the blue line.

“We interrupt this broadcast for an important message. Paradise Awaits, a new fragrance brought to you by DreamInc, the only right choice for the right one on Valentine’s.”

The announcement was accompanied by brass and strings and bled into the beginning of the song Lea had used as a compass. He followed the blue line toward the red brick house, knees achingly hollow with the certainty that the last thing he’d see alive would be the beady blood-shot eyes of the monsters pouring in from the other side. 

He stopped by the doorway and narrowed his eyes to see into the darkest corners before he stepped in. Everything was where he’d left it. Dust had settled thickly on every surface. His footprints had long since vanished. The scratch marks on the floor were no longer visible. The red metal barrels with the bright yellow trefoil stood lined against the wall, lid firmly in place.

Lea pulled out his dosimeter, mouth dry at the sight of them again. As long as he didn’t get an overload, he’d be fine.

The dosimeter screeched as soon as he switched the sound on; it counted, numbers flickering on the screen, quickly, then slowly.

“Let’s do this fast,” Lea said to the bag. He put the dosimeter into his pocket and moved alongside the walls opposite the barrels to follow the blue line up cracked bricks until it vanished.

The grout was darker around the bricks where the blue line ended. Lea knocked on it, loosening pebbles that fell to the floor. He dug his fingers around the four bricks held together by the darker grout until he could pull them all out. A metal box was tucked into the hole left behind. The box was about the width and length of Lea’s hand. It didn’t have a lock, only a small latch Lea had to fiddle with to pry open.

“C’mon.”

The muffled beeping of the dosimeter made his hands shake.

Lea pulled it open. The hinges didn’t make a sound. Inside lay a sight Lea never thought he’d see again, magnificent and regal against a crumbling rag: a Core. 

The Core was a glassy gray object in the shape of a human heart, with ventricles, same-colored cables shaped like veins and an aorta for connection. A work of art, of engineering ingenuity that had been lost to the ages. 

Lea didn’t even touch it. He closed the box and put the bricks back over it and stepped back to make sure it blended into the wall as it had before. Roxas had to be saved before he could acknowledge his finding.

“Yeah,” Lea said to himself and nodded. “First things first.”

The titanium-coated key-rex screws were enough to cover for bail. They were straight off the special items list. Nobody needed to know about the Core.

Breathless, he stumbled out of the red brick house and dropped to his knees. It could be the radioactivity finally getting to him. He hadn’t measured the Core for any radiation or the brick wall. Or this was what happiness was; an onslaught of vertigo, nausea and a primal urge to scream retribution to the high heavens. 

Lea wept as he rocked back and forth, thanking a merciless god for allowing him a second chance. A Core was a surefire way to get permanent residency in the City with all the commodities that entailed, or so the story went.

The people in the City had no piles of garbage littering their lands, only food made to order; endless amounts of food that would appease kings and queens alike. Lea saw an ocean of Spam in funny shapes like rats or doves in his immediate future. Fancy Spam cut into circles. Spam with red onion and cheese.

Lea wiped his mouth to keep himself from drooling as he drove his bike through long-abandoned villages down the road to the southern entry point to the City.

White noise crackled as he steered down the narrow and sandy roads that twisted around empty tin shacks with blown-out windows covered with old plastic bags.

Far to his right, past a muddy creek and mounds of gravel and dirt, stood a large wall of red steel pillars, a chain-linked fence between each pillar loaded with enough voltage to light up the surrounding slum for a good year. Only, it was used to keep the outside away. The Wheel, the crown jewel of the City with its electric blue halo and black sun rays, levitated high up in the air. The skyscrapers on the right side of the wall, old and new, stuck out like middle fingers, and Lea returned the gesture before he switched the radio off.

  



	3. PAST: Radiant Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Reader: [FaultyParagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaultyParagon/pseuds/FaultyParagon)

  


***

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into 

the round jubilance of peach.

  


“From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee

  


  


3

Radiant Garden

  


  


Two armed guards in protective gear stopped Lea before he could make it to the gates. Metal Birds circulated above them. They were the only Metal Birds Lea appreciated because they weren’t there necessarily to watch those who wanted to enter but the guards who had, in the past, stolen bounty from the Scrappers.

Lea stripped out of his gear and tossed it in the basket at the front of his bike.

The guards’ dosimeter was much larger than Lea’s. It looked heavy with the thick handlebar, the curly cable, and the rod pointing in his direction. Whatever reading they got was enough for both of them to take two big steps back when they allowed Lea through the first checkpoint before the gates.

“One incoming. Hose him down thoroughly,” Lea heard one guard say into his shoulder.

And thorough they were. Lea yelped once he stood in the brightly lit cubicle, violent rays of water coming at him from every conceivable direction. The two guards in charge walked around in a human-shaped plastic bubble to pack Lea’s clothes into a sealed bag. The items Lea came to bargain with were put into a machine. That’s all he managed to see before he got water sprayed straight into his eyes. 

Suddenly as it had come, the water disappeared and was replaced with hot air that got him dry quicker than he could complain.

“Wear these,” said one guard to Lea as he stepped out of the cubicle. “You have one hour to conduct your business. Once the hour expires, you will be escorted out of the City by guards. If you’re late you will be penalized accordingly. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Lea said as he inspected the yellow rubber jumpsuit. “Do I have to wear the hood as well?”

“Yes. And this lanyard stating your errand, a map, a picture of who you’re meeting and how long you have left.”

“However will you find me?” Lea asked and clicked his tongue.

The bright yellow jumpsuit was too short on the arms so the guard duct taped the inches of skin visible to the world.

Lea inspected his hands in the surgical light. Despite the high pressure shower, his hands were still stained with mud and rust and wasteland gunk, and his nails were outlined with black, as if dirt had ingrained itself into every crease and crack on his skin, forever embedded. The transparent latex gloves distorted the many tells of this outsider.

“Straight and third to the left,” was the last thing the guard said before Lea was tossed out onto the other side, the good side, where everyone but Lea walked around in clothes that had never seen a single patch, let alone ten.

A normal drop-off would force him down the other side of the chain-link fence, where he’d catch glimpses of paradise before getting to Insomnia Group’s station for Scrappers. It’s where most Scrappers went to get paid by the pound of recovered valuables.

The squeaky rubber jumpsuit and access to the real City came only with top shelf goods like titanium-coated key-rex screws. Lea walked down the only road he could see. It was paved, soft to walk on compared to the gravelly and muddy roads Lea knew. Streetlights illuminated the tiled pavement. Most of the wooden buildings were new; they were businesses for those who could afford to separate it from their homes. 

Music was an everyday thing in these parts. Lea could hear odd rhythms and beats from the pubs and restaurants he passed. He found himself tapping his hands against his thighs inconspicuously. The hood got in the way of a proper look, so he slowed down and listened, humming like he’d remember any of these songs once he was out again.

People around him dispersed automatically like magnets charged with the same energy. Only a few glanced at the outsider, and they did it with the same awe Lea had when he saw a dove; a sight so rare it was almost a religious experience. Except a dove was heaven, and the bright yellow suit was a glimpse of hell. 

A family of four crossed the street to put as much space between themselves and Lea as possible. Both the mother and father pushed the colorful pram forward. Their two toddlers lay waving their small arms around as if communicating with each other in the pram. Lea treated himself to a stare then.

He stopped and stood as still as a statue.

The father, plainly dressed in a gray, clean T-shirt and shorts, reached for the cover both children had kicked to the front; a sky blue velvet cover as squishy in the father’s hand as the children’s chubby cheeks. Toddlers didn’t exist on the outside, not for long anyway. Lea had always wondered what they looked like without the blue and purple staining their skin.

“Excuse me,” he said to the couple and moved toward them.

“Honey, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” said the woman, pushing the pram in the opposite direction.

“I just want to know, where’d you get those?” Lea said and pointed at the toddlers. “Do they come with the river here, too? Or how does it work?”

The man covered the increasingly upset toddlers.

“They sure got a pair of lungs on them,” Lea laughed.

“Leave us alone,” warned the man. “We’ll call the guards.”

Lea raised his hands and took one step back.

“I’m not looking for trouble. I just, I’d like a couple myself. Yours looks sturdy, y’know? Like they could survive winter. What do you feed them? They say breast milk is the go-to, but I’m suspecting they need Spam like the rest of us.”

The incredulous and patronizing glare that was so common in City residents vanquished the smile off Lea’s face. 

“Nutcase,” the man mumbled and led his family into one of the establishments with music.

Lea watched them scurry away. That was his future, come hell or high water. Him, Elrena and their twins out on a stroll. Lauriam could come along if he wanted to.

The toddlers wept, both encouraging each other into a screaming match. Lea listened attentively. He was amazed by their ability to weep as loudly and insistently as a newborn, so unapologetically alive. A stark contrast to the lethargy of the children in the Village’s muddy outskirts.

_My kids will be as strong as that._

The houses down the road got bigger. None of them had been here last time he’d brought something from the special items list. They were at least ten times as big as the biggest building in the Village, Pete’s orphanage. These homes were all two story buildings with glass windows, light in every room, along with spacious gardens and impeccable white fences. 

Lea made mental notes of everything, certain that he could replicate it if he found enough metal sheets and bricks.

The person Lea had to meet looked young. Blond, blue-eyed, small button-nose and a hesitant smile. Lea was certain he’d seen a gnome like her. He found her standing in the middle of a wide road, where the tiles made a framed circle with carved flowers in the middle.

Left to his own devices, Lea would’ve knelt down to touch the carvings and the tiles to measure the depth of them. He wanted to figure out the amount of tiles he’d need to replicate it in what had already become a full imaginary garden surrounding his tin shack.

“Hey.” Lea grabbed his lanyard and held up his card to the young woman. “I’m here to see you.”

“Welcome. I’m Naminé, representative from Insomnia Group. You’ve found items from the special items list. May I please see them for inspection?” Naminé asked and held her hands out.

“Sure.” Lea emptied the bag in her hands and managed to grab one of the screws before it fell. “Six of them. Coated in titanium. And I’m not looking for money, I need a service. Bail.”

Naminé inspected each screw closely. She dragged her thumb against them, muttering and shaking her head as if in conversation with herself. Once she’d gone through them all, the color drained from her face.

“The, the service you’ve requested is temporarily unavailable…” she said, double-checking the screws again. “Did you insert the serial number on these?”

“I haven’t done anything to them. I just want to post bail for a friend of mine. Either give me that or I’ll take the screws with me.”

“You can’t. These are the property of Insomnia Group.” She flashed Lea a forced smile. “Did you find anything else with them?”

“A big can of whoop ass. I’m not leaving empty-handed.”

“The law requires you to disclose any and all items with the Insomnia Group logo. Withholding such items is illegal and is punished to the full extent of the law.” Naminé’s voice was stern, void of the neutral customer service voice she had greeted him with.

“You’re a cheeky kid, aren’t you? You’re the only one stealing here. What’s the law say about that?”

“Did these lead you to a Core?” The face that looked so innocent in the picture hanging around Lea’s neck had turned menacing, jaw locked and eyes narrow.

“Lead me to?” Lea scoffed. “My job’s not that cushy. Why do you think they’ve got me in one of these?” Lea pointed to the bright yellow suit he was wearing.

“I’ll have to detain you.” Naminé reached for a walkie talkie in the pocket of her dress.

“Good fucking luck with that.”

Lea knocked the screws over and grabbed however many he could reach, before sprinting away as if he had an army of Metal Birds after him. He jumped over hedges, ran through gardens, and stumbled over a gnome that had fallen over. 

Lea scrambled back onto his feet, breath burning in his throat. There were voices coming from somewhere behind him. Could be soldiers or upset garden owners. Lea tossed the lanyard into a bird bath and leapt over as many fences he could muster. His knees were like Spam at room temperature, an unsteady gelatinous mess.

He couldn’t leave the City without selling the key-rex screws.

Lea stumbled out to a mainstreet and fell to the ground.

The voices surrounding him now were much more like the family from before. The suit repelled people in a perfect circle. He reached his arm out in a calming gesture, but his gasping and slipping inspired confidence in no one.

“Hey,” Lea heard someone say above him. The man that approached him put a stack of fliers on the ground and helped Lea up.

“Harvest Moon Celebration at Radiant Garden,”  said the fliers.

“No, no, no,” Lea protested when the man pulled his yellow hood back. He could feel his heartbeat in his gums and the taste of blood whenever he managed to wet his mouth.

“Lea?”

“What the…” Lea blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his gloved hands, “... you?!” Lea pulled back like he’d almost brushed up against a barrel with the trefoil. 

Before him stood the traitor of traitors, one so full of stories he left no room for the truth. Isa, destroyer of worlds, of hearts and hope, stood before him, dressed in a jacket with a collar that covered his chin and sleeves that came past half his fingers. His long blue hair was in a messy bun, stray locks framing his pouty, angelic face.

“What are you doing?” asked a person from behind Lea. “They’re riddled with disease. You can’t undress him here.”

“Yeah, it’s dangerous,” agreed another.

“Don’t worry,” Isa said with a tone that inspired trust, the same Lea had fallen for so many years ago. “I’m a guard. I know what I’m doing. Please, let me do my job. I have to escort him elsewhere, so… please, stay back.”

“Like fuck you are, you fucking weasel!” Lea flailed. “Let go of me! Let go or so help me I’m gonna beat the shit outta you!” Lea kicked and screamed and tried to grab the long locks of blue hair that flew by him. “He’s lying. He’s a fucking liar.”

Lea’s tantrum seemed to put the concerned citizens at ease. They moved cautiously past the scene, staring and whispering amongst themselves.

Isa leaned Lea against him, one arm around his waist, the other preoccupied with the fliers he’d picked back up at some point.

“Let me help you,” Isa whispered when Lea began to struggle again. “Are they chasing you?”

“So what if they are? What’s it to you?” Lea panted.

“I can make it so they don’t find you, so you don’t end up in prison or hanging from a noose,” Isa explained carefully, as if Lea had the same level of comprehension as a child.

“Fuck you,” Lea spat.

“Is that a yes?”

Lea attempted to lean on his right foot to push Isa away, but his ankle was sprained, and the dull ache that came with the least bit of weight on it had him lean onto Isa more. He swore under his breath and then said, “Whatever.”

Isa had the decency to not talk to Lea on their way to rescue. He was much too preoccupied with keeping a steady pace and not losing his firm but gentle grip on Lea. With every other adjustment, Isa brought Lea close enough for Lea to smell him.

The sweet scent made Lea’s mouth water. It dampened his fury for a brief moment. He closed his eyes and shivered.  _Peaches._ The memories it brought were enticing at first; they were of a time before Isa became the destroyer of worlds, when his touch brought Lea comfort; a time where Lea would desperately seek him out if they were apart.

Lea placed his hand on his abdomen where faint scars lingered, knowing that Isa had mirroring ones. Their first carnal reminder of their mortality had been a revelation to Lea. Wounded by shrapnel, they had hidden by a pile, holding each other, bleeding together, certain that death would soon come for them. Lea had been home then; he’d found love in Isa’s embrace.

Being close to Isa had been easy - an urge - because they shared one body. Death was come to mend their separation. It was only later that Lea concluded that, as a ten year old, he’d known fuck all about the mechanics of love.

“Oh goodness, Isa, do you need help?” a lady called from the gates to her garden.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Highwind.” Isa smiled, sighing heavily.

“Are you sure? You seem winded.”

Isa raised the hand with the fliers. All was well.

The good memories faded. Along came flickers of jagged memories with the drunken haze of cheap liquor. At the tender age of sixteen, Lea's world had come crashing down. Half of Lea had disappeared with the most precious item Lea had ever found. And here that half stood next to him, a pretty exterior hiding a rotten core.

“Hey there champ!” a middle-aged man with a big, gray beard came shimmying with a hearty chuckle. “Terra wouldn’t tell me anything. The man’s a fort. But for my peace of mind, there will be ice cream for dessert, no? Any extra stock for sale, if not?”

“Yeah.” Isa nodded. He took a deep breath.

“Excellent!” the man clapped. He gave Lea a quick look and raised his eyebrows quickly. “I’ll leave you to it. You have your hands full. Make sure you wash them properly.”

The man made a face at Lea as if his disgust was too much to hide.

Lea found the strength to turn his attention away from Isa when the man went on his way. He made himself heavier, and seethed at his past, at Isa’s silence, and the man’s audacity.

Lea’s string of curses, insults and truths he wished to impart was long, and still in its cradle by the time they arrived to an area somehow more upscale than anything Lea had seen.

The beautiful scene, framed by streetlights, with its cute potted plants hanging from lamp posts, shrubbery down the sides of the road, houses in soft and warm colors, each as well taken care of as the last, had Lea grind his teeth to not attempt leaning on his sprained ankle again. All of this splendor should belong to him. 

His first Core had been tucked under the seats in the yellow bus down by the river, in the Forest of the Dead. All corpses that were flushed out of the City piled up by the large boulders year after year, until they became fertile, but cursed, soil. No one dared to venture to these grounds where monsters were said to spawn for feed. 

Lea had trusted Isa with the secret. That decision had cost him a kingdom. This kingdom before him. Upon the throne sat a usurper, helping him under the guise of kindness.

Isa led him through a high, white gate of thick wood, carved with small winged creatures. Leaves grew on the arc, the stem twisted and turned every which way, and each and every leaf was entirely green. There was no sign of rot anywhere.

The path to the front door was flattened with pieces of marble, surrounded by lush grass until it became flower beds around the big two story house with a small tower on its side. 

Isa grabbed the railing and leaned against it by the second step up the porch. His grip on Lea’s suit grew tighter when he struggled up to the third step.

“What are you doing?” Lea asked.

“Nothing,” Isa breathed.

“Are you gonna faint?”

“Stop.” Isa shook his head. “Stop asking questions.”

They staggered to the front door. The stack of fliers dropped to the floor with a splat when Isa dug for his keys frantically, his breathing turning into a wheeze once he managed to get the door open. He pushed Lea off against a patterned, pastel blue wall and stumbled into a wide open space full of tables and chairs. Isa leaned against a dark brown dresser where menus lay stacked next to a line of small guillotines. 

Lea limped after Isa, tilting every framed painting that came in his way in his rush. The wheezing came with a loud whistle. Lea shuddered at the sound, heart beating hard in his chest. He didn’t know what to do.

Isa rummaged through drawer after drawer until finally Lea heard the hiss that came with the application of the medicine. Lea took a deep, shaky breath at the same time as Isa.

The years had distorted some details into invisibility. Specifically those pertaining to guilt. The details came whizzing back into his mind with every wheeze, until they painted an intricate picture of a past Lea preferred not to dwell on for the sake of his sanity. Isa’s lungs were scarred all because of him. It was all his fault.

“You alright?” Lea asked, fidgeting, after a prolonged silence of Isa leaning against the dresser.

Isa nodded and stood up straight slowly.

“Yeah,” he snivelled. He wiped his eyes with his forefinger. “Just a hiccup.”

“Sorry… about earlier,” Lea said softly and wet his dry lips.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you - do you wanna say something to me?” Lea demanded, gesturing plaintively with his hands.

“I would’ve died out there, Lea,” Isa said calmly.

“You stole the Core from me! That warrants a ‘sorry’ at least. I trusted you!” The words which Lea had yelled to empty space so many times before came rushing out. He’d imagined this in so many different ways; how Isa, if he ever had any conscience, would drop to his knees with the guilt weighing on him as he begged for forgiveness — forgiveness for stealing, for leaving, for betraying him so thoroughly he’d been changed in irreparable ways.

“Are you hungry?” Isa asked, one hand on his hip, rubbing one side of his face with the other thoughtfully. “We gotta get you out of that suit. It could be tracked. And you look sweaty. There’s a staff bathroom past the kitchen. There should be clean towels in the seventh locker furthest away from the door.” Isa walked up to Lea and grabbed the collar, his face a frown.

Lea slapped Isa’s hands away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“You’re not getting that off with the gloves duct taped to your skin.” Isa’s feigned concern churned Lea’s stomach.

“I’ll manage.”

Isa glared at him, but nodded and hurried past the dresser and the chairs and tables to the next room; a spacious kitchen with a long and wide opening along the wall so that anyone could look in from wherever they were sitting. Isa waltzed in there and grabbed an apron before he washed his hands.

“Don’t just stare. Clean yourself up,” Isa urged him. “I have guests coming in a few hours so unless you want to spend the evening in a closet under the stairs, go shower.”

Only when Lea limped toward the kitchen did he see the back walls of the open space. They were littered with greens and flowers in colors Lea had never seen before. His mouth fell open and he scratched his arm absentmindedly.

_A lesser man would weep at this_ , Lea thought and swallowed the lump in his throat. There was a realness to the greenery, a combination of fragrances that together made Lea’s nose tingle. They didn’t have the same glossy sheen of the flowers hanging off the radio at the minimart. It was different, like the color of a toddler that’s alive.

“How much water does it cost?” Lea asked with a heavy voice and pointed at the walls.

“Not much. They water themselves - or the pots are set up to make sure they’ve got water.”

Isa held a red ball the size of his palm. It had a green head, like hardened hair. On the cutting board next to it there were two oblong, yellow balls.

“Do you wanna taste?” Isa asked and held it out to Lea like bait.

“No.”

“Alright. Go shower. Just down that way.” Isa pointed at a door on the other side of the kitchen.

Lea hung his head and made his way to the staff room. It was tiled with some sort of glassy ceramic material. Lea had come across pieces upon pieces similar to it within the piles, but he had never found anything that could make them stick to an upright surface without the whole thing slipping off and shattering like glass. 

Lea flopped down on a bench and began scratching at the duct tape. His gloved hand wasn’t enough to get the edge, so he gnawed at it like a rat digging a tunnel through concrete. It stretched the tape, but without peeling it off at all.

“C’mon,” he whined and stomped his good foot.

He caught the loose edge between his teeth and pulled. The duct tape lifted from his skin around his bite, but the further he stretched, the thinner the duct tape became until it snapped.

“This fucking piece of -”

Lea slammed his fist into a locker. He flinched on contact with the metal, expecting it to crumble like rotten wood. The resistance of the locker erupted the building anger in him. He slammed his fist into the same locker again and again until he cried out at the dull and searing pain from every joint in his hand.

The pain grounded him. 

The dazzle of this place, of Isa’s riches and resources, quickly had him forget why he’d come here in the first place. He tried to wiggle his toes without wincing and heard the metallic clink of three titanium-covered key-rex screws in his shoe.

Maybe this detour to his past and glimpse into a future that could have been was a test to see whether he could focus on his mission. The universe conspired to make sure Lea didn’t lose sight of what mattered; he had to get Roxas back.

Lea lifted his wrist to his mouth and tried the duct tape again, his mind drifting away from the blinding rage, until all that remained was the patience that had helped him survive on the outside.

Once the gloves came off, he saw the buckled locker in a new light. His first instinct was to apologize, but what moron apologizes for breaking their own things?

Lea stepped into the spacious shower. There were no knobs or levers like in the showers by the check-in point, nor were there hundreds of holes in the walls for the water. When he stepped under the large shower head, a steady stream gushed out.

Lea yelped, prepared for violent water jets, but it was a gentle embrace. The warmth of the water softened his tense and aching back. His neck throbbed as he took deep breaths. Lea almost sank to the floor as sleep washed over him, but the pain in his hand kept him awake. 

Lea gurgled water for a good ten minutes in the shower. Every strand of hair on his scalp was wet by the end of it. It hadn’t hurt like the showers at the check-point; it had killed with kindness instead and highlighted the soreness that had worked itself deep into every muscle over the years.

Lea stepped out of the shower, wrapped in the soft and fragrant towel.

Isa had laid out new clothes for him on the bench right by the bashed in locker. A sweater, dark blue sweatpants, and underwear and socks to match. Lea scratched his chin. Neither underwear nor socks were commonplace for him. They were expensive, and wore out quickly. 

His bruised hand made getting dressed a miserable endeavor, but as he stood admiring himself in the mirror, his hair an unmanageable mane as it dried, it became apparent that it had been worth it.

The clothes made him look like the somebody he knew he was. No one would recognize him like this in the Village. They wouldn’t dare to look him in the eye. They would simply make way and offer him an assorted collection of the healthiest children available - the best liver, the best kidneys, the best heart; meat bags, really - and hold their hands out for payment.

Lea wanted to hate the clothes as much as he loved them, but he had already put them on. There was no need to struggle to get them off.

Isa wasn’t in the kitchen when Lea stepped out of the staff room. Lea found him tending the flower wall with a small basket hanging from his arm, in which he put wilted leaves, petals and flowers.

Terra’s music played in the background. Lea had only heard muffled versions of it in the late evenings, back when he’d walk home to the orphanage, leaving Isa with his family all cuddled up in a sort of comfort and safety which few on the outside could experience. 

Terra’s music was a wall between them, a painful distinction between wanted and unwanted. Lea had no memories of a family like Isa’s. No one came when he wept. No one held him while telling stories about an ancient past of warring gods and pirates on adventures. No one that mattered at least; a someone who’d never betray him. The song made Lea’s stomach turn. If he’d had a locker in front of him now, he’d break his other hand.

Isa did a double-take before he shifted his attention from the flowers.

“They fit you well,” he said and approached Lea. “Let me take a look at your hand.”

“How’d you know it was my hand? You’ve got cameras in there or something?”

“You didn’t crawl out, so you didn’t use your other foot or your head.” Isa smiled politely. “Have a seat.”

Lea sat down by the indicated table. The tablecloth was a pristine white, embroidered with the same pattern as the front gate. Isa had already prepared a bowl with water, bandages and salves. A small vase stood in the middle of the surface with fresh cut flowers - the same he’d find in the Yellow Zone - right next to the guillotine and rocks Lea had taken notice of earlier.

“King Protea,” Isa said, nodding at the flowers.

“What’s with the ball cutter?” Lea asked when Isa reached for Lea’s bruised hand. Tension was seeping back in his neck and shoulders.

Isa snickered. “It’s not a ball cutter. It’s a salt grater. The rocks are different types of salt. It’s like grating parmesan.”

“What’s parmesan?” Lea yawned to fight the building lump in his throat.  _Fresh flowers, parmesan, table cloths so fucking white they’re blinding..._

“Cheese.”

“Fancy. You live a very fancy life,” Lea said sharply, a clear accusation.

“Why would you do this to yourself?” Isa asked while he inspected Lea’s hand. “Have you broken anything?”

Lea didn’t answer. He pursed his trembling lips, caught in a struggle against ire and the irredeemable things he wanted to say.

Isa submerged his hand in the water bowl and placed it on a soft towel on his lap. He traced the nicks and bruises, watched small droplets of blood pool alongside the small wounds. Isa was gentle. He wore kindness like armor to silence any outbursts.

Isa wasn’t going to give up on any of his possessions without a fight.  _There has to be a way in which I can separate him from his cash…_

Lea steeled himself.

“How much are you worth roundabouts?” Lea asked at last. “Are you important to anybody?”

“I hope so.” Isa glanced at him. “Thought I might be to you.” His voice was low, directed at the bandage in which he was dressing Lea’s hand, not Lea.

“Yeah,” Lea said thoughtfully. “You did always believe in weird tales.”

Isa had been untouchable up until now. The past was something he seemed to have overcome. Lea broke through the armor of kindness and caught a glimpse of what was underneath.

Isa clenched his jaw and remained still for a few seconds, eyes set on his lap, before he rose to his feet. Lea’s hand slipped off his lap like a dead fish and smacked against the side of Lea’s chair. The pain shot through every bone in his body and Lea froze like he’d fallen against an electric fence, breathing loudly through clenched teeth.

“Are you hungry?” Isa asked and walked into the kitchen.

“Fuck!” Lea managed at last. “You asshole, you did that on purpose!”

“I think you’re gonna like what I made for you. Remember that stew we got once from the man with the radio?”

“I’m gonna saw my hand off,” Lea mumbled, body folded in two.

“It’s taken some time, but I think I’ve been able to recreate the taste but with different ingredients. Nothing canned in here.”

Isa placed a soup bowl in front of Lea along with a spoon, a fork and a spork. He filled a glass with water and whipped a napkin open in one swift move. “Chin up,” Isa said and took advantage when Lea sat back up.

“Can you not touch me?” Lea snarled and yanked the napkin out of Isa’s grasp. “I thought I was clear on that.”

“Mind the stew. It’s hot.” Isa’s smile was cold.

The doorbell rang.

Isa lingered, attention on Lea stirring the stew nonchalantly. When the doorbell rang again, he hurried to the door and left Lea alone with his meal.

The stew had an orange color with bits and pieces of food floating around. At the sight of it, Lea remembered. The stew had been the only prize they’d won in the orphanage’s race for valuables. It had cost them the death of a Metal Bird and lifelong scars. 

Lea stirred the stew and licked his lips at the scent wafting into his face from the steam. Nothing may have been canned, but Lea recognized the flavor of some of the ingredients, like the diced potatoes, carrots and black beans. If it hadn’t been as hot as it was, Lea would’ve gurgled it down like he’d done the water in the shower, angling the bowl until he could inhale it through mouth and nose.

“Everyone else will be here in about thirty minutes. They’re having dinner in the house next door,” Lea heard Isa say.

“And they found the ice cream?” asked a darker voice in a gentle tone.

“Yeah, it was in the freezer all along, but the label was turned to the back. I tasted it.”

“Did you like it?” The other man sounded curious and eager.

“It was delicious,” Isa giggled, delighted.

“Is it better than yours with the peaches?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

The giggle had Lea nearly cough up a piece of potato, but it somehow made sense when he saw Isa walk in with Terra. The frosted white tips Lea remembered from childhood had taken over Terra’s hair. He still wore elegant suits albeit this particular suit wasn’t dusty or torn like the ones he’d worn way back when he lived on the outside — back in the sturdy house on the hill from where music played after Lea left.

“Who’s this?” Terra asked and walked up to Lea to shake his hand. “I’m Terra. Isa’s brother-in-law.”

“This is Lea,” Isa said, one arm across his chest to support his other arm as he twirled a stray lock on his finger.

“From…?” Terra faced Isa, hand still stretched to Lea. “Not from outside the City?”

“I found him wandering around,” Isa said.

“All the way here? Isa…” Terra dragged Isa to the kitchen where he pulled down a metal curtain over the window, but the door was ajar.

“He’s just gonna be here a little while,” Isa whispered.

“Right, because you know it’s illegal-”

“To keep people from the outside,” Isa finished.

“Especially a Scrapper. They have to be out where they belong. And Aqua, if she sees him, Isa, it was a rough time for her. He’ll bring all that back.”

“Maybe she won’t remember him. You didn’t.”

Lea shivered at the softness with which Terra spoke to Isa, as if the risk of any frustration seeping into his voice was an impossibility. It was hypnotic, like white noise. Even as a child, Lea had been unsettled by it. Perhaps, he thought, it was because Terra had the same effect on people as the humming of the electrical fence at the border between the Yellow and Red Zone, soothing, but altogether dangerous for anyone who got too close.

“Are you sure?” Lea heard Isa ask.

“Yes, go upstairs with him and I’ll handle things here tonight. Don’t let your sister see him. And he’s gone by the morning.”

Silence.

“Isa, say it back to me.”

“I won’t let Aqua see him.”

“And?”

“… he’ll be out of your sight.”

Terra laughed at the change of phrase.

“You’ll see him back to the gate and we’ll figure out how to get visitation rights,” Terra said firmly. Lea couldn’t hear what followed.

Only Isa walked back out. He picked up the things he had used to tend to Lea’s hand and stirred the spoon in the bowl.

“Did you like it?” he asked when the spoon touched nothing but bowl.

“It’s food,” Lea said, throwing a shrug in for good measure.

The disappointed look on Isa’s face was worth it.

“We have to go upstairs.”

“Or what?” Lea challenged.

“Or I’ll saw your hand off.”

The wooden staircase that led upstairs creaked under each step. A cozy hallway was on the other end. It split into various rooms, most of which had closed doors. Isa talked along the way, but Lea’s attention was drawn to the series of paintings decorating the long hallway. He recognized the stories they told. One in particular flamed his cheeks; the story of Lass El-Behar from Rabat, the pirate king who fell in love with the jinniyeh of the sea. No other had turned the great Lass El-Behar’s gaze from the pristine blue ocean, his frigate, men and conquests. The fair-skinned jinniyeh with hair of fire and emerald green eyes became his everything. At least, that is how Isa had told the story on a cold, moonlit night when they sat in an abandoned yellow bus in the cursed grove by the river.

_“I love you more than anything on earth. More than my life and my salvation.”_

Lea would’ve needed a hard slap to stop himself from remembering the softness of Isa’s lips that night, the tender and tentative touches on his face, and the certainty of his words both as part of El-Behar’s story and their story. 

“This is my bedroom,” Isa said and held the door open for Lea.

Lea didn’t see it until he nearly walked into it.

“Careful. I’ve only got so much gauze.”

Lea ignored him and walked into the bedroom.

It had a high ceiling. Hanging from above were large, colorful orbs in intricate patterns, one around the other, with each of the big ones orbited by several of the small ones. Two bookcases covered the walls of a small nook in the corner, tucking away an orange armchair. Beside it was a small table and a reading light shaped like a stripped clock. One wall, the furthest into the room by the spacious bed, was cluttered with drawings, numbers and maps of dots. 

Isa reached for a knob on the wall and the ceiling whirred. Lea fell back at the sound, thinking Metal Birds stood outside ready to attack, but instead, the whirring was the roof peeling back to reveal the night sky behind clear glass windows. They were in the tower Lea had seen from the outside.

“Your room isn’t ready yet so you’ll sleep here.”

“When will it be ready?” Lea asked absentmindedly, each step tentative when his eyes darted from one thing to another.

“In a month, I think. They’re still tiling the bathroom so there is no furniture in your room and it smells like grout.”

“What do you mean?” Lea chuckled nervously.

“Grout, it’s a gray and mud-like mixture used to attach tiles to a wall or the floor,” Isa began.

“I know what the fuck grout is, but what do you mean by ‘my room’? I don’t have a room here. I didn’t even know I was gonna be here today. So how do you have people grouting _my_ bathroom?!”

“Tiling,” Isa corrected.

Lea took a sharp breath. Whatever remained of his blush became a sign of growing frustrations.

“I was always gonna come for you,” Isa said, arms crossed and brow furrowed.

“Ten years ago! Funny how it took me stumbling in here for you to remember.” Lea forced a laugh. “I’m not staying here, especially not with you. At first light, I’m gone.”

“So you’d rather live out there?”

“I’d rather sleep on the red barrels in the Yellow Zone!”

Isa gaped, still for a second. “You don’t mean that.”

“I think somebody’s got you on heavy drugs, honestly. You’ve gotta be out of your mind to think I’d wanna have anything to do with you after the shit you pulled on me. Let’s overview, yeah? You were the only one who knew I’d found a Core, you swore up and down that Terra was gonna get you back into the City, and with the Core on me, I’d get in too, but instead you stole it - you stole the fucking Core right out of my god-damned hands - left me in the dust, literally in the dust, to come and live a cushy life here. I don’t hear shit from you, not even as much as a can of apology with a sticky note on it, for ten years, Isa. That’s this many years,” Lea held both his hands up, one with the fingers spread, the other a sorry mess of purple in bandages, “rummaging in filth. So you can shove your fucking bathroom up your ass if that’s still something you’re into.”

A small part of him regretted the rant when Isa pursed his lips before hiding mouth and chin behind his hand. Without a word, he crossed his bedroom to his bed where he grabbed four puffy and oblong pillows and threw them in Lea’s direction followed by a folded, pale blue cover.

Isa got into his bed and pulled the covers over his head. Maybe he snapped his fingers or maybe the lights were in tune to him, but the lights switched off in that instant, and Lea was left to figure himself out in the dark.

  


***

Lea dreamed about the abandoned brick house in the Yellow Zone. Ragged and filthy, it stood in the dark. The fence hummed until strong winds muffled it with the rattling of the leaves. No light from the Metal Birds cut through, just moonlight through thick clouds.

Lea’s legs were heavy as lead. The ground ate at him with every step he took toward the brick house.

An eerie presence made the hairs on his arms stand up and he shivered at the sudden breeze chilling his soaked back.

From beyond, Lea heard his radio crackle. The noise moved from pile to pile, echoing from odd angles. The chainlink fence began to unfurl. Each popped link made the whole structure coruscate. 

Wet, choked groans followed. 

Lea tried to lift his legs with his arms to move faster, but whenever he dropped his leg too fast, his foot folded to the side until he stood on his ankle.

Lea fell to the ground.

He braced himself and tried to push himself up, but the ground was hungry. The clouds dispersed, and the moonlight revealed the shadow devouring him. It took the shape of him, age shifting with every blink. It cracked its mouth open as if to scream. A bubble of black grime came out of its mouth. It popped and released the inconsolable cries of an infant.

Lea tried to grab a hold of it, pull it out from the black liquid that gathered around it, but it slipped out of his hands.

Lea dug for it frantically. Chest heaving with effort until finally he found the shadow that had sunk in through the ground. He pulled it up, expecting the crying infant, but the shadow changed shape again.

Roxas. 

Black grime fell out of his mouth, nose and eyes as the flowers with the blade-shaped petals - the King Proteas - grew out of the grime. He sobbed and tried to form words, but all he managed was to pull Lea further in until he startled awake. 

Lea gasped and gripped at the front of his shirt. 

The night sky he’d fallen asleep to was a lighter shade. First light.

“Time for you to go,” Lea heard Isa say. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

Isa sat on the foot end of his bed. He folded a screen like a book and tossed it beside him.

“Dream on,” Lea croaked. His heartbeat dulled his hearing.

Isa turned the lights on and Lea grunted, shielding his eyes behind his arm.

“I never asked you why you were here,” Isa said.

“And it’s none of your business.”

“So I looked and on your warrant for arrest it says that you found key-rex screws.”

“Looking to steal from me again?”

“I know what you want, Lea.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You have, on four occasions, posted bail for inmate one-three-one-three-eight. Price looks pretty steep for someone with… your limitations. The company denied you bail this time. Perhaps a guard or two could be convinced to share the reward for something as rare as key-rex screws. Or they could just beat you up and take them like I took the Core. What can you do to well-fed guards with your busted hand and sprained ankle?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I am important to someone that matters,” Isa echoed Lea’s words coldly as if the phrasing had made one of Lea’s plans plain, “so I suggest a trade. I free your inmate if you stay with me.”

  


  


  


  



	4. PAST: Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Reader: [FaultyParagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaultyParagon/pseuds/FaultyParagon)
> 
> Fixed the timeline indicators!
> 
> ***

4

Escape

  


  


Lea should’ve stormed out of the house in the light of Isa’s ultimatum. Lea almost did, almost left at first light to solve the situation the best he could without Isa’s nefarious meddling, but the warmth of the blankets held him back, the softness of the pillows, the mesmerizing turning of the planetary system above him; it cradled him in a kind of comfort he hadn’t known since the womb.

He had given Isa a non-answer to his ultimatum, one that was open for interpretation.

First light was long gone when Lea startled awake again and scrambled to his feet. He stumbled straight into a desk by the door and managed to just barely grab a helmet that rolled off. It was a heavy biker’s helmet. Lea turned on it to make sure it hadn’t cracked. There was a small picture inside, above the embroidered name “Terra.” It was a picture of a young Terra with a big grin. His hair had been dark brown through and through. His face seemed slimmer than Lea remembered it.

It was a face he had seen traces of on someone else.

Lea put the helmet back to hurry out of the room. He rubbed his eyes. His heart was a dull thud in his chest that came with unsettling pressure. Every hour he wasted was another hour Roxas spent in the hellhole. The urge to roll back into the blankets only helped to fuel the guilt that made his legs hollow. 

Lea grabbed onto the handrail to steady himself as he walked downstairs.

“Isa, have you given thought to what I asked?” Aqua’s voice had Lea freeze in his tracks. Maybe he was meant to wait upstairs to not upset her, but Isa hadn’t said anything about it.

“Yeah,” Isa said, his voice a testament to indifference. “You’re not getting any more money for your little experiments. Enabling isn’t doing you any good.”

“Enabling?” Aqua repeated with an incredulous scoff. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“I’m saying that you’re not well, alright? And I can’t afford to keep throwing money away. Not anymore. Things have changed.” Isa’s indifference melted away into something akin to caring.

“Did you tell Terra?” Aqua’s voice wavered.

“No, it’d destroy him to hear you going on about this again.” Isa clicked his tongue. The cutlery rattled when he tossed them into the sink. “Why are you going on about this? Why can’t you just let it be? You must hear how insane you sound when you say stuff like you’re going to find the end of the world or that the creatures attacking us are coming from other dimensions?”

“It’s not insane,” Aqua insisted. “I just need more time and resources, and I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove that nothing here is what you think it is,” Aqua began, determined, but faltered when she continued, “that… that – some monsters…”

Isa groaned with frustration as if he’d heard this before.

“Some monsters achieve their goals!” Aqua raised her voice when Isa began to talk over her.

“Stop talking. You’re not getting any more money!”

Lea shivered at the mention of the monsters. It seemed like such a distant problem in this place, as if Lea had come to another planet where they couldn’t possibly know about anything that occurred on the Outside.

He took a tentative step down the stairs, thinking the worst of it was over.

“Terra isn’t Terra,” Aqua said after a moment’s silence.

“Alright, can we finish breakfast now, please?” Isa sighed.

“You must have noticed, Isa. That’s not the same Terra we knew! He’s not _my_ Terra.”

“None of us are what we used to be,” Isa said sternly. “How could we be when you’re off losing your mind regularly?”

“My Terra is still out there somewhere!” Aqua’s voice wavered.

“Yeah, yeah, at the end of the world, right? I haven’t forgotten since you keep repeating the same thing over and over again.”

“What’s changed then? What’s this big recent change?” Aqua demanded. “This used to mean something to you too.”

“You’ll see.”

_And what sight she’d be faced with_ , Lea thought. The lanky kid from years past, waltzing into whatever issues were unfolding between Isa and his family. It was hard to imagine Aqua as anything but lucid. Lea had always seen her read when she thought no one was looking; she’d hide folders and envelopes under her shirt and put a cardigan on to hide the outlines of it. Lea thought it was something she did to keep warm, but maybe her research stretched far back in time.

The staircase creaked when he rounded the corner and continued downstairs. Lea’s mouth watered the second he made it down. Something sizzled in the pan, bread was baking in the oven, the table where he’d eaten supper the day before was set for four.

The voice reminding him of Roxas fought a losing battle against the overpowering hunger that had been awakened.

“Lea,” Isa called and hurried out of the kitchen to greet him. “Good morning.”

“Yeah, good morning,” Lea mumbled. He waved awkwardly at Aqua and hung his head like a scolded child.

“We’ve made breakfast. Please, sit wherever you like,” Isa said eagerly as he showed Lea to the table. “You must be starving. How’s your hand? I should probably change the bandages before we leave.”

Lea could only nod at Isa’s odd change of behaviour from this morning. Judging by the deepening scowl on Aqua’s face, Isa was playing this charade to annoy her. Lea was happy to play along if his reward was a breakfast that tasted as good as it smelled.

“What is this, Isa?” Aqua asked. Every word sounded like a challenging exercise of self-control.

“A new beginning,” Isa said simply.

“A new beginning,” Aqua repeated, chuckling miserably.

Lea placed his hand above the brass colored knife beside his plate. He’d never known this family to air their grievances in the company of an outsider, let alone Aqua who’d shepherded her family into the safety of their home to discuss their issues, far away from prying eyes and ears. Lea’s fingers trembled against the knife. If she’d become as erratic as he imagined her to be, anything could happen.

The tension broke when the outside door opened and shut. A different spirit seemed to take over Aqua in the time the door shut and Terra appeared. Whatever ill will that had resided in Aqua, travelled through the room and lodged itself in the iron grip Terra had of a brand new walking stick. It cracked in two. Lea jolted at the sound; he was a tinderbox in a room full of gunpowder.

“Good, you’re back!” Isa smiled. “We’re having breakfast.”

“Are we now?” Terra said as he looked at what he’d done with the stick. He clicked his tongue. 

Lea had only witnessed Terra’s facade of perpetual politeness come down once; Isa had been dying then. Maybe he was at death’s door again because Terra said nothing, not even a ‘good morning’ to smoothen the show of anger.

“Good morning!” Aqua chirped from behind the counter as she picked up two trays and went to the table. “Isa and I made breakfast for everyone.” She placed the trays upon the table. “It’s so good to see Isa up and about. I told him what you said before bed, Terra.”

“About the guest book and the appetizers?” Terra asked. He left the broken walking stick on a nearby table.

“There were so many lovely comments,” Aqua continued. Oddly enough, she genuinely didn’t seem to notice Lea until she sat down next to him. She jumped and put her hand over her chest.

“Who’s this? A friend?”

Lea fidgeted in his seat. He tried to recall whether her question had been _what is this_ or if it had been _who is this_. Maybe she was reset when Terra walked in, maybe she didn’t remember him. Why would she if she even failed to recognize her own husband? 

Lea lifted his gaze off his plate to face her. It was the polite thing to do. In that instance, in the split second where the real her shone through, Lea knew that she recognized him. Her glare was sharp as if she was mentally ripping him limb from limb. Whichever version of him she remembered, it wasn’t a favorable one. 

Lea thumbed on his cutlery.

“No,” Terra said and smiled. “No, this is… Isa, introduce him.”

“Classmate from cooking school,” Isa said easily.

Aqua held her hand against her cheek and shook her head slightly. “I’m so rude. I recognize you definitely, but your name escapes me completely.”

“Well, darling, you’ve never met him,” Terra said. “He…”

“He just did the last semester with me,” Isa cut in. “He came in after class pictures were taken. I’m sure he’s in one of the pictures from the field trips somewhere, but yeah, you haven’t met him.” Isa fiddled with the flowers on the table, the one with the pink and white blade-shaped petals.

Lea shuddered.

“And what’s your name?” Aqua asked Lea with amiability so exaggerated her voice became lighter. “Names are hard for me to commit to memory.”

“Axel,” Terra was quick to answer. “Axel, say hello to Aqua.”

“Hi?” Lea shook Aqua’s hand. His grip was loose to easily pull away, but Aqua clenched down until the sides of his hand shifted white.

“Hello, _Axel_. Did you sleep well?” As soon as Lea nodded, she let go of his hand and turned to Isa. “This isn’t the friend you’re renovating the bedroom for, is it?”

“Yes,” Isa said with a determined nod. No part of Aqua’s change seemed to phase him. He played along as if this was a practiced skit. It made Lea question the argument he’d heard. Had it been a dream?

“No, that’s, that’s,” Lea attempted, but was ignored when Terra interrupted.

“Coffee or tea, Axel?”

“What?” Lea asked, eyes darting between Aqua and Isa still. His hands were moist with sweat.

“Coffee or tea?” Terra repeated, sternly but politely. 

“Both,” Lea said at last. He shifted Isa’s cup to his side and sat back, giving Terra enough space to pour.

“My head’s a little scrambled,” Aqua said to Lea. “I was in an accident a few weeks ago.”

“Not another car crash?” Lea chuckled nervously. Aqua’s comment reminded him of how this upper middle-class family had ended up in the Village. A reckless car drive in pouring rain, a desperate search for someone already in the car while the Wheel made the ground shake with the first Dirge of the age.

Terra slammed the metal teapot back onto the table so forcefully that everything else on the table jumped.

“Apologies,” he said almost immediately, and reached his hand out to hold Aqua’s. “My arm’s still a little weak from all that whisking yesterday. A paper pusher like me should probably stay out of the kitchen.”

“You’re more than a paper pusher,” Isa said fondly.

Lea gulped and glanced at the thick arms under Terra’s layered suit. _Best not mention those, then_. He’d call himself paranoid for the thoughts racing through his head on any other day, but if Isa, in his doe-eyed admiration, was like Terra – the Terra Aqua saw – it was possible that everything between Aqua and Terra had begun with a recently renovated bathroom that later escalated into regular car crashes. No one who struggled to remember a present before this one would leave their golden cage. 

Isa went back to his breakfast disturbingly fast and Aqua followed suit as if Terra’s explanation was within the realm of plausibility. Lea cleared his throat and turned his attention to his plate. Never had food so colorful and fragrant been so hard to swallow. Lea shoveled it in, reminded of the adage he’d heard once about eating in the death realm: _he who feasts with the dead pays with his soul._

“I’m glad you’ve joined us, Axel,” Aqua said. “So _very_ glad. With an extra pair of hands in the kitchen, the restaurant will soar even higher.”

Lea made no comment. He wolfed down whatever was left on his plate. He distinguished no taste, and barely gave himself pause for texture. It was food, that’s all he needed to know.

“I’ll teach him everything I know,” Isa said with a smile.

“Surely, we can afford some secret recipes?” Terra’s jaw clenched with every bite. “Don’t you two need to be somewhere?” Terra asked Isa.

“Yeah,” Isa replied cheerfully. “But Lea was hungry, so I’m just waiting for him.”

“I’ve had all I can take.” Lea pushed his tray back. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  


Lea looked up at the sun when they stepped out of the house. Midday already. He could make a run for it – oh, how he wanted to – but the streets here were foreign to him, and he’d be of no help to Roxas if he were to be apprehended. 

Lea paced in the front garden as Isa lingered by the door. The street lights at night didn’t do this place any justice. Lea hadn’t noticed the tree crowns that were nothing but small pink flowers. A gust of wind ruffled the crowns and made it rain soft pink. Lea caught a few petals in his hand. They were paper thin. Nothing this fragile stood a chance in the Outside. It was so unlike the brown leather jacket in which Isa had dressed him. The jacket looked like it could withstand as much abuse as a cockroach.

“Ready?” Isa asked before skipping down the staircase.

“I’ve been since sunrise, yeah.”

“This way.” Isa led Lea around the house to a second gate, even more dramatic and intricate than the first. It carried a sign over it, written in cursive letters and surrounded by numerous decorative flowers. _Radiant Garden_. 

Lea turned to see the greenery behind him surrounding the house. Flower-beds led up to the entrance, full of flowers of different shapes and sizes. Bushes of roses colored the lawn with specks of vibrant red, blue and yellow.

As Isa stepped forward and held a small door in the gate open for Lea, Lea reached his hand out and pulled a handful of flowers with him. If his brute ways didn’t kill them, he’d have something nice for his workshop.

A plaza opened up before them, with a large fountain standing in the center. The heart of the fountain contained a large statue of a kid with wings and heart arrows, from which water continued to burst out in rhythmic patterns. Small stalls lined the edges of the fountain, patrons by each stand. The scent of buttered popcorn, flavored cotton candy, and caramel apples filled the air. Lea knew none of the smells by name or sight, but the sweetness of them all made his mouth water.

“Sorry about breakfast today. Terra has been on edge lately, but it’ll pass,” Isa reassured Lea. “Are you alright?”

Lea kept himself from scoffing. Aqua had unsettled him much more than Terra, although they were neck-and-neck until the very end. He almost made a comment, but realized how any comment could be construed as him caring about anything in that house.

“What’s going on over there?” Lea pointed to the commotion by the fountain.

“Oh, the fair? It’s mostly food stalls and games. Do you wanna go see?”

Lea nodded and wiped the side of his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. 

The stalls were hypnotizing up close, with swirling patterns in gold and silver on a bright red background, colorful patterns, and other signs and snacks. So many snacks. The popcorn man had popcorn of every color packaged in folded brown bags with a small patch of see-through plastic to see what was inside. A treat for those who wanted to nibble on the popcorn at home or just save them for later. 

Everyone who approached the stall got a fresh serving to enjoy at the picturesque plaza and a bag or two to go. The popcorn man was busy. Lea could easily grab at least five of those bags and make a run for it, be gone before anyone could guess what happened.

“I think you’d like the traditional ones with salt and butter,” Isa said and crooked his hand around Lea’s arm as he pointed to the traditional ones. “The salty caramel ones are really good, too. But I don’t know, might be too sweet so soon after breakfast. We can bring a bag with us.”

“I’ll – I’ll have those,” Lea said quietly, nodding again. He was aware of Isa’s hand on him, but did nothing to shake him off, not with a treat like this at stake.

The popcorn man was a redhead, like Lea, with a bushy mustache and a matching set of eyebrows, unlike Lea. His face was wrinkled, each wrinkle a testament to a joyous smile he showed each customer excited to receive a cone of freshly popped popcorn. 

When he handed one off to Lea, Lea dug in immediately. He was quickly scarfing it down, laughing, and tapping his feet, heart growing warm. _Do these grow on trees_ , he found himself wondering. If he found that tree, he’d take a branch and make it a Priority One project right alongside his Metal Bird Grabber. He’d make it grow into a majestic popcorn tree so he could have these for the rest of his life.

“You finished them already?” Isa sounded surprised. He’d only gone to pay for it.

“Sorry, did you want some?” Lea emptied the cone of any remnants straight into his mouth.

“No.” Isa chuckled. “You’ll get a stomach ache. You have to chew your food, you know.”

“I chewed. Where do these grow?”

“Well, it’s corn, from a cob that comes out of a plant.”

“What’s a cob look like?”

Isa dug into his pocket for a small notepad and an equally small pen. He flipped it open and scribbled for a while, eyebrows furrowed with concentration and judgment. He held out the drawing for Lea to see.

“That’s a dick,” Lea said and pulled out the bag with the salted caramel popcorn.

“What? No, it’s not. It’s a cob.”

“Cock, dick, it’s the same thing.”

“Co _b_!”

“What are the things on the side?” Lea asked as he chewed.

“Leaves. The cob’s swaddled in leaves, and this bit here is the crowny bit that attaches it to the plant,” Isa tried to fix his sketch as he explained. “And these are the corn. They are yellow and square with rounded edges.”

“You’re red,” Lea noted.

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“I’m not the one drawing dicks out in public.”

“Stop saying that word.”

Lea smirked.

As much as Isa had changed, some of it was the same. The way he played with his hair when he was restless, the chewing of the inside of his bottom lip when pensive and trying to figure out whether Lea was mocking him or not, but most importantly, his resistance to swearing or saying anything improper as if there would be someone around the corner waiting to scold him. Somewhere in there was the boy with the family and the stories, the envy of all orphans; the boy who’d chosen to orbit Lea, who reflected the specks of light left in Lea after years in the dark, until Lea shone so brightly he thought he’d become the sun. Lea had loved that boy.

Lea was shoved a step forward by something nudging the back of his legs. He looked back and saw a small child with a giant plush toy under their arm, struggling to move through the crowd and after the mother who held their hand.

“Sorry, mister!” the child said before shoving him once again when the plush got stuck against a flower pot.

“Hey, look, a corn cob,” Lea announced, pointing at the plush that was just as Isa had described it.

“You’re a f–”

“Here it comes.” Lea grinned at Isa’s contorted face around whatever morphed swear he was about to say.

“I need to shoot something,” Isa announced instead, turning on his heel and walking ahead.

Lea trailed after him, intrigued by the balloons tied to the lamp posts, and the human-sized teddy bears offering hugs. People on the outside would use him for target practice if he ever walked around like the teddy bear. He’d attract everyone with an arm to the market place and they’d hurl anything rotten at him – rocks if it really got out of hand. 

Lea considered the profession for a second until he saw vivid images of rocks being thrown at him. It’d make for a short career.

The fair opened up behind the fountain with even more and bigger stalls. At the far end of the road was a big, pastel colored carousel with sea creatures, and behind it, in the distance, the DTTH.

“What’s that?” Lea asked and pointed.

“The Wheel of Energy,” Isa shrugged and hurried to the stall with corn cob plushies lined on the wall, from biggest to smallest. “Two, please.”

“Does it do anything else than float? Is it a military base?” Lea had seen it from afar so many times; this was his chance to learn more about this eyesore that was so much alike the flower from the Yellow Zone.

“I don’t know,” Isa sighed, managing to convey annoyance with his whole body when he turned to face Lea. “It’s near the Citadel so it probably belongs to the King.”

“Didn’t you say he died all those years back?” Lea insisted.

“Yeah, a king died when I was little. But they’ve got a new one in now. It’s usually how that works.”

“Have you seen him?”

“The Citadel has been on lockdown since the surge of monsters, so no.”

“What a life, huh?” Lea said when Isa turned away from him, shaking his head. “All cozied up behind walls with luxuries I can’t even imagine, all at someone else’s dime. I’m sure you can relate.”

Isa drummed his fingers against the counter. Again, not a comment – not even an apologetic look his way – only silence. Lea kept giving him chances to ask for forgiveness and acknowledge what he had done; Isa had had that opportunity every day since he’d left and chose to ignore it, even now. The boy with the stories, the envy of all orphans, would’ve never abandoned Lea. The boy Lea had loved was dead.

The man on the other side of the counter, rough-looking as if he’d just waltzed in from the Yellow Zone, was dressed in a worn black vest on its last prayer, keeping the man’s gut from spilling over his pants. He passed Isa a long-barreled gun, along with ten shots to go with it. 

As soon as it was loaded, lines of lights lit up in the stall and cobs popped from behind various rows. Lea held his wrists against his ears and watched as Isa graced one cob with an exaggerated smile, missing the other four shots he attempted.

“You missed,” Lea said and dug into the popcorn bag.

“You think you can do better?”

“I know I can do better. I haven’t lived this long without shooting down some Metal Birds.”

“That’s a crime. And from what I remember, it’d take you a day of tossing rocks at a drone to crash it.”

Lea scoffed. A lot had happened since they last saw each other; his Metal Bird hunting had improved, just to mention one of countless things.

“I’ll tell you what’s crime,” Lea said instead of following his trail of thoughts. “Having two functional hands and not being able to hit anything that’s what, ten feet away tops? Give it here.” Lea put his popcorn bag away and grabbed the gun with his good hand. As he loaded the gun, he said, “Start the light show, pops. We’re eating corn on the cob tonight.”

The corn cobs came out of their nest, moving across the lines in half-circles with their taunting grins and lifeless eyes. Lea watched for a second before shooting down one. He recharged by jerking the gun downward with one hand, then lifted it up again to place the butt of it under his armpit to steady his aim. _Bang! Bang! Bang!_ The corn cobs flew off the lines one by one until the lights began blinking in the same color.

“Congrats!” said the man, hustling over to Lea to get the gun back. “Anything you want from the top two shelves.”

“The middle-sized one,” Lea said and pointed to one plush that could easily be carried under one arm.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Lea grabbed the plush for a quick inspection. 

It was the scariest piece of vegetable he had ever laid eyes on. It even came with an extra accessory attached to its head: a pink, transparent ring with a dome. Inside the dome were two corn cobs, holding each other and waving as if reaching for the sky. Both had wide grins on their cartoonish faces. Lea shuddered before he pressed it up against Isa’s chest.

“For you. Enjoy. It’s the last cob you’ll get from me.”

Lea laughed as Isa turned beet-red, ready to berate him for his choice of words before realizing he’d misheard.

  


The road to the prison was a long way from the fair, with more twists and turns than on the Outside. After a walk through the fair, they took a shortcut through a park. Isa claimed it was the fastest way to the tram station.

The different shades of green burned Lea’s eyes. A couple of blinks helped Lea readjust and appreciate the size of the trees around them; they were crooked, wide and cracked, crowns so large he couldn’t see how far up they went. Flock of birds flew between branches, squawking and twittering, Lea couldn’t keep up. Just one of these flocks could feed them for a year. He’d even consider guarding a flock for a while, just to hear the songs they sang to each other.

“If we walk straight down this road, we’ll get a treat,” Isa said, pointing to a road with no tram station in sight. “It’ll be the next best thing you’ll ever see in your life.”

“Is it far from the tram station?”

“Hmm,” Isa began, until he finally settled on a determined, “no.” 

He had put the corn cob plush inside his coat, the material bulging unflatteringly. The tacky ring, however, remained outside of the coat. Upon noticing it, Isa had removed it from the toy, testing it on each of his fingers until he found the right fit. After it was secure, he kept rubbing his thumb against it as if it’d turn into a magic lamp. Lea thought of taking it back, annoyed by how much Isa toyed with it and glanced at it like it meant something.

The paved road turned into one of fine gravel. The lawns were decorated with flower beds, one more colorful than the other, formed into different shapes Isa said was best appreciated from above. 

With the flat grounds and nothing higher than a tree, Lea couldn’t imagine what Isa meant, until a large crystal structure appeared down the road. It was bustling around it. Children ran around with their parents close behind. None of them had spent days searching mud for food.

The distraught cry of a newborn cut through the laughter. Lea froze, chilled to the bone by the sound. It didn't stop. Who could ignore a call so urgent? 

An array of nightmarish scenarios flashed behind his eyes, urging him to search for the child. He turned to run into the crowd, away from Isa and the entrance to the building, but the cries stopped. Silence followed.

Few sounds were worse than a silent child. Children that are alive either cry or coo, but there was nothing. Lea gulped, certain something horrible had taken place until he saw a mother rock her newborn in her arms. Such a small thing it was.

“Hey.” Isa waved his hand in Lea’s face; the pink of the ring was enough to break Lea’s trance. “We’re going that way.”

Lea sighed with relief, hiding his trembling hands in the sleeves of the jacket.

Isa grabbed Lea’s arm and led him to the entrance. A tower rose from the ground, wrapped in layers upon layers of vine-like crystal that looked as if it had frozen on its way up to the top. The Pillars of Existence.

There was an open space between them and it. The closer they got, the harder it was to hear anything else but the thunderous waterfall that seemed to come from the sky and fall into a small lake right by the crystal tower. 

Lea squinted at it. There was no end to the waterfall. The further up Lea looked, the taller the tower seemed next to the waterfall until the ground began to sway under his feet. Lea shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Is it coming out of the sky?” Lea asked.

“No, it’s coming from the lake,” Isa said and smiled at the incredulous look on Lea’s face. “It shoots up as it falls down.”

“With that much power?” Lea tried to find the end of it again, squinting and stumbling as he leaned his head back.

“The wind decides where the waterfall will make it rain next. It goes further up than the tower. But that’s not the most amazing part.” Isa sounded like he was brewing a new story. One part truth, three parts bullshit, unless he had tampered with the recipe and discarded truth altogether.

“Remember that thing you told me about once, the bidet?” Lea cut in.

“Stop it,” Isa chuckled.

“Do you reckon this is god’s? Would explain why we live in a dump.”

The entrance to the crystal structure was an uneven vault that was wide at the start, but narrowed down the further into the rocky corridor they went. The rocks were the same sleek black as the DTTH, growing in large blocks that made walls and floors an uneven, slippery mess. 

Lea touched his way forward, feeling for loose bits to put in his pocket, despite the various signs with a stern warning about steep fines for those that were caught stealing. Nobody back home would believe him if he didn't bring proof.

The narrow corridor opened into a glade. Young trees lined the walls of the exit, the older trees were further into the glade. Lea marveled at their size. Wild flowers were everywhere; some in clusters, others wherever they had taken root, be it in the middle of the glade or out through the hollowness of some trees.

A monarch butterfly circled Lea’s head as if curious about the walking fire.

“What’s it doing?” Lea asked, concerned, turning after the monarch butterfly to not lose sight of it.

“Looking for food, I guess.” Isa stopped and watched Lea twirl.

“They eat people? Suck their blood? Should I whack it? Isa?” Lea heard the increasing panic in his own voice that made him sound like his teenage self.

“It’s a butterfly,” Isa said, barely hiding his amusement behind his casually placed hand over his mouth. “It eats nectar. And don’t hurt it.”

“There’s no nectar here, buddy. Move along, yeah? You’re making me nervous.”

The butterfly landed on Lea’s nose and flapped its wings slowly like the Metal Birds did when they went into search mode mid-air. Lea stared at it, growing cross-eyed, taking in its fuzzy face, big eyes, and antennas with curly ends. It was simultaneously amongst the ugliest and cutest things Lea had ever seen, until he saw it stretch its tongue out to lick his nose.

“Isa!” Lea yelled, clenching his fists to fight the instinct to slap it off. “It’s licking me! It’s licking me! Get it off!”

“Calm down,” Isa laughed. “It can’t hurt you.”

“Please, I can feel its little tongue. I’m gonna kill it. I’ve gotta.”

“You’ll be fined. Especially now that you’ve yelled it for everyone to hear.” Isa pinched Lea’s nose and with gentle prodding, the monarch butterfly went on its way. “For a lot of people, that would’ve been a religious experience. Good thing it wasn’t a hummingbird that approached you. You would’ve given the poor thing a heart attack with all the yelling.”

“What’s a hummingbird?” Lea asked as he bent over to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath.

“It’s a small bird, like this big,” Isa said and measured it between his stretched thumb and middle finger. “A real bird, not made of metal. I don’t know how many varieties there are, but the ones here have a shimmering emerald green coat, and a slightly crooked nose to reach into the flowers and drink nectar. They’ve got little wings and they flap them so fast, you can barely see them. It’s, it’s beautiful.”

“So you’ve seen them?” Lea asked, surprised at the reverence Isa seemed to have for this bird.

“Yeah.” Isa smiled.

“And was that a religious experience?”

“Yeah, it was.” Isa brushed his hair behind his ears, turning his gaze elsewhere as he nodded. “This is a sacred place. If legend is to be believed, this is where everything began.” Isa paused and twirled a lock of hair around his finger repeatedly. “So people come here to pray – I have – and if you’ve been heard, you see a hummingbird.”

“What’d you pray for?” Lea chuckled, ready to make fun of whatever Isa said next.

“I prayed I’d see you again.”

“And what’s a butterfly mean?” Lea cleared his throat. Isa’s pauses made his heart race, and he strained his ears to hear what wasn’t being said. “I’m not cursed now, am I? I mean, more than I already am.”

“The butterflies are skittish, so they don’t usually come out to the middle of the glade to not be trampled.” Isa gestured to the open space, void of insects and birds whose calls came from the distant sidelines. “They’re messengers. Our creators and protectors reaching out, basically, and if they choose you, it’s a blessing.”

“It licked my nose, Isa.” Lea tried with a joke again to break the charge between them.

“They work in mysterious ways and all that,” Isa shrugged. “I believe in it.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you? You live a walk away from a place like this.”

_That oughta do it_ , Lea thought, waiting for the inconspicuous and melancholic smile on Isa’s face to fade. Instead, Isa pointed to the main event ahead, scuffling ahead, motioning for Lea to follow.

A large tree stood in the middle of the glade, its branches cascading down like hair, covered in small, blue flowers over a nursery of purple flowers. Wisteria, the tree, and purple pansies outlining the large spiral of lavender. The specks of purple spread throughout the whole glade like a pinwheel covered in paint. Isa grabbed him by the arm again and hurried up to where a sign stood erected, ten feet away from the display.

“We can’t get any closer than this. There’s an invisible fence here,” Isa said and pointed to the occasional flickering that revealed its existence. He smiled with childlike excitement, untarnished by any other worry. “This is where it all began. Where water gave birth to life. Parted in two, they became one and created a symphony of flowers that spread and became this earth.”

“The water split in two? How’d you know there were two?”

“Look here,” Isa pointed to the aerial picture of the lavender swirl on the sign. “The swirl goes both ways, see? Both start off in the middle, one lighter than the other, and here they entwine. The swirl grows wider and stronger and propels outward. They say that the root system here is unlike any other in the City. It’s like the plants talk to each other, transfer copious amounts of data to maintain the glade as it is. Pure. And it all starts at the center of the lavender swirl.”

The sign transitioned into different slides, some with more text than others. Lea tried to keep up, but without practice, his reading speed had faltered and he only managed to catch bits and pieces while sounding out the words quietly: crossroad for star-crossed lovers and the DTTH as a Wheel of Fate. Lea clicked his tongue when the slide transitioned into another.

“There’s a pamphlet in the information booth at the northern entrance,” Isa said. “It’s got everything the signs say.”

“Whatever,” Lea muttered. “Let’s go to the prison. I can’t be wasting more time here.”

Nothing he saw here was for him, after all. Not the trees, not the flowers nor the monarch butterflies, and especially not the crossroad. Every part of this was a calculated scheme. Isa thought he’d won, that Lea and everything else were like the corn cob plush, a prize easily taken off the shelf to do with whatever he wanted.

“Sure. We could always come back later.”

Lea didn’t say anything. He turned on his heel and headed for the exit. Star-crossed implied outside forces meddling and destroying any chances of a relationship. There were no outside forces at play between him and Isa. Isa had done all the dirty work himself, and with every choice he made, he carried on that sick legacy with pride. 

On their way out, a volunteer in a bright vest handed out pamphlets to people who passed by. Lea momentarily thought he’d slap them out of his hands and stomp on the copies that fluttered down his path, but instead, he grabbed the one on offer, seeing it crease in his tight grip before he shoved it into the inside pocket of his brand new jacket.

  


The walk seemed to be endless until finally Lea laid eyes on the exit that was just as grand as the entrance.

“We’re going to the prison, right?” Lea asked when the tram station was nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah,” Isa said. “Not all trams go there. It only stops further down the road and at two other stops in the City before turning to the closed off area.”

“There’s one of those here too, huh?” Lea scoffed. The affluent truly stopped at nothing to categorize and ostracize the destitutes.

“It’s not detrimental to the health of the populace. It’s a prison.” Isa stated it as a matter of fact, as if what was had always been and would – and should – remain the same.

“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” Lea said bitterly.

“Why are you worried all of a sudden?” There was no trace of the reverence that had done the impossible and made Isa’s voice warm. “You weren’t in a hurry back at the fair.”

“I was in a hurry,” Lea snapped. “I’ve been in a hurry since before I got here, but you like to drag your feet so here we are, still going.”

“I’d forgotten how insufferable you can be,” Isa muttered.

“Well, I hope you didn’t spend too much on that bathroom.”

“You promised,” Isa said sternly. “His freedom for you to stay.”

“Whatever.”

They found the tram station eventually. The flower beds weren’t as prevalent the further away the tram went. The trees were thornier, taller, compact, much like the only living trees Lea had known at the border to the Red Zone. The residential areas were far behind them, a fairytale dream of a child rudely awoken to the grim realities of adulthood. Gray concrete buildings with bars over every window peeked from behind fortified concrete walls. This place looked much more like home. 

Isa walked ahead, hands in his pockets as if this wasn’t a sight worthy of awe. He told Lea to stand back when they approached the gates. It was for his benefit, surely. Lea was a runaway. His face was probably plastered on every wall at every precinct.

Isa had either done this before or he was doing it for show, ignorant to how the world worked. He’d been spoiled rotten, after all.

Isa turned from the guard and beckoned Lea over with a wave.

Lea flinched at the loud buzz the gates made when they slid open. He looked up at the red blinking light on the gate; it was so much like the ones he’d always seen on Metal Birds. 

There were more guards on this side than he’d ever remembered on the other, not that he’d ever been allowed further than the entrance on the other side where he was used to dealing with a pile of shit guard stacked five-foot-two behind triple-layered Plexiglass and who’d mumble into a microphone and try to extort more money from him than the agreed amount. 

This was new.

A tight-lipped guard met up with them at the entrance and guided them through a monochrome labyrinth of hallways. At the end of each hallway, there was an emergency exit map with a red dot indicating where they were. Most exits on this end led back into the City, far away from the actual cell blocks. Lea bit on his nails. He thought he’d have to start making peace with the idea of staying on this side, at least while he hatched a plan. Getting Roxas out was all that mattered today. Everything else would fall into place once that was done.

The guard led them to an elevator that he activated with a badge hanging around his trunk-sized neck. He was scarcely equipped. A gun, pepper spray, a baton and a walkie-talkie, all sat on his belt. A far cry from the clowns outside that were armed to their teeth. The guard adjusted his belt as they stepped into the elevator. Every press of a button had to be authorized with the same badge as before.

“Access to Ground Floor approved,” a calm female voice announced through the speakers.

The emergency exit maps changed on the ground floor. Lea knew the main exit. Two large iron gates with two puny guards lay a few twists and turns away, and beyond that was the main road that led back to the Village. They’d have to take a detour if the cops decided to come after them. Their clown cars didn’t do well off-road.

“You’re in room A71,” said the guard. “Down this hallway, third door to the right. There is a two-way mirror in the room for your safety. Take a seat upon entry.”

“Thank you,” Isa said, grabbing Lea by the sleeve of his jacket.

“I can walk on my own.” Lea yanked his hand back.

“Can you? You’ve been looking everywhere but forward. Can you stop acting like an idiot and just focus? Once we’re in that room, they’ll listen in on everything, so don’t say anything stupid.”

The urge to snap back drowned in the impending doom of the narrow hallway. Even rats could be claustrophobic, and these hallways made him wish for the expanse of wasteland he called home. 

Isa pulled him along. The closer they got, the narrower the hallway became.

Lea chewed on his bottom lip. He’d be rubbing his hands together, peeling small bits of skin back from around his nails if his hand hadn’t been wrapped in bandages.

On the few occasions Roxas had been allowed visitors before, they’d have him in a room where he’d have to get into a squat before entering. Those rooms were without windows, hot and dry with guards breathing down their necks, eagerly awaiting for any reason for punishment. 

The room they entered this time, however, was too spacious for three people, and even with a guard there, there’d be plenty of space between them. It was foreign.

The room had three cameras, all attached on the ceiling in the shape of a triangle. The black eye in the middle of each followed them as they sat down, the two-way mirror to their right with Lea closest to it.

A guard walked in with Roxas.

Lea imagined Roxas would be held in chains, but oddly enough, he was brought in with hands and feet untied. The chain and cuffs came on once Roxas sat down. The chain was tied to the metal bar on the table.

Lea rose to his feet at the sight of Roxas’ bruised face and split lip, but Isa pulled him back down. Roxas looked small on the best of days. Scrawny, as if Spam couldn’t put a dent in whatever hunger ate at him.

“You alright?” Lea said past dry lips.

“Always,” Roxas gave him half a grin. “I didn’t think you’d make it in here without clubbing some clowns.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way.” Lea shook his leg, fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket and tried to drum his stiff fingers against the table. He wanted a glimpse of the man who’d dared to batter Roxas with the hope he would recognize him out on the streets and return the battering with interest.

“We’re here to post your bail,” Isa cut in and pulled a rolled up paper from the opposite side of the plush in his jacket. It had a red ribbon on it. The guard provided the pencils. “Lea agreed to stay in the City in exchange for your freedom. But before we can go our separate ways, we have to sign this contract.”

"Who's this clown?" Roxas asked, attention on Isa.

"Roxas," Lea sighed.

"I'm not signing anything. And neither should you."

"That's the general rule, but listen," Lea leaned in. "We gotta get you out. That's all that matters now. Look at you. How many rounds like that do you think you've got in you?"

"I'd rather die in here than owe them anything…" Roxas rose and spat in Isa’s direction. The heavy boots of the guard came with a dull thud when he hurried from the door. He slammed Roxas back into his chair.

“It’s fine,” Isa said, sternly. He glared at the wet spot on the sleeve of his jacket with disdain. “Stand down.”

The guard was slow to let Roxas go, and did it with disapproval clear on his face. Whatever happened, the guard would take Isa’s side, regardless of what that meant for either Lea or Roxas.

Lea exhaled slowly, and shook his head at Roxas, hoping his plea for cooperation was heard. Roxas sat down. He clicked with the chains of his cuffs. His nails were marked with dry bloodstains and knuckles a matching color to Lea's bashed hand. A nervous tic to anyone, but Lea heard a pattern.

"I have to think about this…" Roxas said at last, hanging his head in defeat.

.. / .... .- ...- . / .- /

"It's better this way,” Isa assured him. “You will be free of this and give Lea the chance at a better life. You wouldn’t deny him that, would you?”

.--. .-.. .- -. .-.-.- /

Lea placed his good hand on the surface of the table and slid it closer to Roxas but never moved closer than halfway in order to feel the taps he couldn't hear when Isa spoke. Roxas had a plan. There was no guarantee it would work. Lea couldn’t imagine what the plan was. Whatever it was, it’d be a hundred times better than Isa’s golden cage.

..-. --- .-.. .-.. --- .-- / -- . .-.-.-

"I will provide you with a lifetime's supply of food," Isa continued. “And a fix for wherever you live. Your roof won’t ever leak again. You’ll get a floor. Heating.” Every word he said made him sound more and more like the rich vultures that came to the market place every weekend, offering crumbs to any healthy child willing to sell their organs.

Lea nodded.

"Yeah," Roxas said thoughtfully. "That would probably be the best for all of us…” He paused, snivelling. “I don't have a signature. I can shake on it and then I need a pin so I can sign with blood.” He lifted his head to face Isa and held one shackled hand out. “Shake?"

Isa motioned for the guard to get Roxas out of his chains.

The guard’s hands eclipsed Roxas’ hands. The guard would be able to quench the slightest sign of resistance, grab Roxas by the throat and break it like a twig. Lea would follow unless Isa decided to make him live a life of suffering with Roxas last moments etched in his mind. 

The guard placed the cuffs by the metal bar and stood back, awaiting orders.

Lea fidgeted, uncertain what to do with his arms; should he cross them over his chest or leave them as they were on the table? He couldn't bring himself to look at Isa with fear that the truth would be plain on his face. He didn't know what the plan entailed, but it was in action and he'd be damned if he got in the way of it.

Isa cleared his throat as he shook Roxas’ hand. "Yes, we can have that arranged – if –" Isa coughed and motioned for the guard. "Get a pin," he said in between coughs, trying to clear his throat.

“Are you alright, sir?” the guard asked, but got only a dismissive wave in response that sent him out of the room.

Roxas dragged his hand against the table, right in front of Isa, eyes wide when the coughing came with a wheeze.

“Roxas! What’s going on? What’s the plan?” Lea rose to his feet so fast his chair fell over.

The fine, green powder on the table lifted and spread with one swift slam of Roxas’ hand.

“Uhh,” Roxas rounded the table, seemingly uncertain whether to watch what he’d done and try to fix it or continue with the next step.

“Roxas, for fuck’s sake!” Lea ran to Isa to search his pocket for the inhaler. Did he pack it before they left? Secret inside pocket is where it had been when they were kids; was it the same now?

Lea patted Isa's jacket frantically.

“I’m on it! I’m on it! Shit – why’s he, why’s he like that?” Roxas hurried to the wall and began to knock on each, starting high then going low.

“I’ll tell you if we make it out of here,” Lea said. "Isa, where the fuck's the inhaler? You've gotta, hey – search for it!"

A foreign sound from outside the door sent Lea running for the walls despite Isa’s struggle for air. Isa dragged his nails across against the table as if in search for a pocket of air. The sound rang in Lea’s ears. It transported him to the cabin in the Yellow Zone where Isa’s struggle still echoed.

Lea shook his head to block it out. He followed Roxas' suit and knocked despite not knowing what he was searching for. The guards would come for Isa like Terra had so many years ago. Isa had a safety net, one that both Lea and Roxas lacked.

A click and a wall slid open. The corridor was long and dark, but Roxas didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Lea by the front of his shirt and ran into the corridor. They didn’t look back when the wall slid close behind them. Lea had his heart set on what lay ahead. The past was where it belonged; far behind and behind a thick wall. 

The corridor was narrow. They scrambled against the walls when they stumbled and went further and further in until light finally cracked through an opening ahead.

Another sliding door opened without as much as a prompt. They were up a rocky hill, tucked away between bigger, steeper rocks.

Roxas bent forward, hands on his knees as he gasped for air.

“No, no, we can’t stop now. We gotta keep running,” Lea said, pushing Roxas with him as he kept walking.

“We’re already out!” Roxas complained and leaned back.

“How’d you know about this?” Lea asked, preparing to quiz Roxas and remind him of one fundamental truth: never trust a stranger. “Who built it? What for? If you know, they know and I wanna be gone before they’ve got every clown of the circus waiting for us down there. So, chop chop.”

The climb down was perilous. Rocks were loose, gravel gave way under their feet. Lea was sweating buckets. He tried to find something to grip with a hand and an elbow when the hill got particularly steep. Losing his temper on a metal locker was not a proud moment and the hill seemed to want to remind him of it every step of the way. The locker, in turn, came with the wheezing sound of his past and guilt so heavy, Lea nearly fell down the steep hill.

Lea clenched his battered hand around a rock. His pained groan caught Roxas’ attention.

“You okay?” Roxas asked.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Keep going.”

The circus had retained all of its clowns by the looks of the empty desert ahead of them. The main road had been visible from up the hill and revealed that they were close to the Village, but instead of following the main road, Lea walked forward.

“Where are you going?” Roxas asked, running up to Lea to push him in the right direction.

“We’re going back to my place.” Lea pulled back.

“But I wanna check in on the others.” Roxas dug his feet into the sand, but slid back when Lea refused to budge.

“Roxas, there was a dead rich guy in your house like a day ago.” Lea frowned, uncertain whether Roxas understood the severity of his situation. “There is more surveillance than people in the Village right now.”

“You know about that?” Roxas stood back. His shoulders fell forward as if shame weighed too heavy on him to stand straight.

“Hey,” Lea grabbed Roxas by his shoulders and shook him gently. “I took care of it. I buried his dusty remains in the Yellow Zone.” Lea waited for Roxas to stand properly. “Something’s fucked,” Lea sighed.

“I didn’t kill him though,” Roxas said.

“I know you didn’t,” Lea assured him.

“He was nice to us and said he wanted to make sure we were healthy.”

“I don’t think anything human killed that man, Roxas. It could be another outbreak. Maybe that’s why he was out here. Who knows?” Lea ruffled Roxas’ hair. He laughed when Roxas shoved him playfully. “We’ll check on the others when everything’s settled down, alright?”

“Alright,” Roxas agreed with a forlorn glance toward the village.

Hayner, Pence and Olette meant the world to him, Lea was clear on that. But he didn’t like it; he didn’t like the certainty they had between them. All three had risked life and limb to prevent the cops from taking Roxas without hesitation. All three had been reluctant to tell Lea about the body. Lea provided them with food, and yet, their loyalty, their love, their sense of belonging was with Roxas. Lea wanted that certainty, but life had made him paranoid. He had reason to be with what he had stored back home.

Lea stroked his chin. Something was truly amiss and he needed to get to the bottom of it.

“How’d you find out about the door out?” Lea asked at last.

“Inmate.” Roxas shrugged.

“Same guy who pulled that number on your face?”

“No… I mean, it was his idea, but… I did this.”

Lea halted Roxas with a hand on his shoulder and turned him around.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to go full tinfoil hat on me if I tell you… It was weird, I’ll admit that much, but he seemed like he genuinely wanted to help. He said that he’d heard that you would show up with some big shot who’d bail me out and that he’d promise you the sun and moon for you to stay, and…” Roxas fidgeted. He squeezed his eyes shut as if regretting the ‘and’ he’d let slip.

“And what, Roxas?”

“I sleepwalked. In the cell. He saw it and got me that powder. Said it had a double function. A remedy for me and a kick in the nuts for the big shot. The powder was going to buy us time, he said. And it did help with the nightmares!” Roxas voice rose at the end, like he wanted to break Lea’s chain of evidently racing thoughts.

“Fucking hell, Roxas,” Lea rubbed his face. His heart dropped to his feet and was flung back up again. They knew and needed to be led to the bounty. No one went outside the borders of the Village unless necessary. They needed Roxas, and by the looks of it, they had him. No one gave their fellow man a remedy for anything unless they got theirs first.

“It’s nothing bad, Lea! He was just trying to help.”

“That’s an inside guy.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Did you tell him about your nightmares?”

“N-no, not much. Just – just the parts about the Wheel.”

“Roxas!” Lea began, struggling to believe what he was hearing. “That was an inside guy. Forget everything I’ve ever said about anybody, whoever gave you the out is an inside guy. Isa found out about you this morning, which means that guy either found out immediately because he’s an inside guy or he’s a fucking mind reader with range, both completely within the realm of possibility where these fuckers are concerned. Roxas, did he give you anything else? A rock? Clothes? Anything?”

“…no,” Roxas mumbled and drew lines in the sand with his foot.

“You can’t be this trusting. Whatever he gave you is a tracker.”

“I never get any gifts. I just wanna keep this one.”

“I give you plenty of gifts!”

“It’s not the same,” Roxas pouted. “I don’t _need_ this. It’s just a pretty trinket. Who else would give me something just for the heck of it? What about you? Where’s that jacket from, huh? Those pants? Is that a new shirt? Maybe they’re trackers and should be torched!”

“Look, listen, Roxas, here – I’ll give you the best gift ever right now if you give me what he gave you.”

Lea dug into his pocket for the bag with the leftover salted caramel popcorn. Pulling it out and trying to find something else to gift Roxas was an internal struggle. Lea loved every single popped corn, things he’d probably never see again in this lifetime. He’d pull off his pants and gift them to Roxas to keep the popcorn, but he feared the risk of exposure.

“What?” Roxas perked up.

Lea held the popcorn bag out and bit his lip at the sight of it. “It’s, it’s popcorn. With salted caramel. That’s why it’s brownish. They’re really, _really_ good. And would probably cost a year’s worth of valuables at the minimart. It’s, it’s a trinket… a food trinket...”

“Wuah!” Roxas grabbed the bag with one hand and tossed Lea a small rock-shaped widget with the other. “Can I have some now?”

“Sure, but please, please savor them, alright? Promise me. It’s not Spam. They’re as if Cores were edible.”

Roxas grinned and held the bag to his chest. “I will! I will! What are you gonna do with my gift?”

Lea turned the thing in his hands and frowned. It was inconspicuous, polished glass that looked like a gem inserted into rock so hollow it was probably plastic made to look like rock. Plastic was easier to remove.

“We’re digging a hole and tossing it in. If we’re lucky, they’ll be out here digging for us til their backs break.”

The tracker was left in a ten inch deep hole covered in loose sand. Lea lost track of it as soon as he stood up. Whoever the inside guy was, would be here for days digging for an underground tunnel or something equally nefarious. Lea would need all extra time he could get because it had become apparent that it wasn’t Roxas they were after, but Lea and whatever they thought he possessed.

  


  



	5. PRESENT: Mr. Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Reader: [FaultyParagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaultyParagon/pseuds/FaultyParagon)
> 
> We're living through some pretty intense times right now. I hope everyone's alright considering the circumstances. Take care out there!
> 
> ***

5

Mr. Lonely

  


Terra lacked Aqua’s tact. Aqua respected the locked door and Isa’s unwillingness to speak. She took only what he was willing to give, but Terra didn’t have that kind of consideration for boundaries. He didn't take kindly to being ignored. Terra knocked thrice and waited no longer than ten seconds after each knock. The gloves came off after that. 

Without a second thought, Terra pulled the door right from its hinges; not to break it, but to blur the lines between Isa’s sanctuary and the rest of the world and its ills. The locks still served their purpose, though. They had no give and Terra was too big to fit the crack. The fiddling, the pushing and pulling on the door gave Isa time to shut his curtains, hide his pictures and curl up in his chair in front of the computer. Terra, ever loyal to the Company, would only need one look at the alien to assess his worth, and tear Isa’s one light away from him. 

Isa's hobby of collecting and blogging about cute outfits had taken a backseat with the newfound life on the deserted island in the middle of the river. With the distraction of the alien on the island, Isa had gone from refreshing his blog posts every other half minute to every other day. The amount he ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner was no longer determined by the amount of likes he got; instead, he ate when the alien ate, and tried to mirror his ferocious hunger with varying success. More than anything, he just wanted to find out more about the creature.

In his absence, the blog had been a flurry of activity. Isa’s latest update had a myriad of new comments, many more than what was normal. A familiar knot of anxiety and anticipation fluttered in the pit of his stomach. This was a place to be seen without being known. He had missed this rush.

Isa scrolled down to see the comments sorted by  _Best first_ as the banging on the door grew louder.

  


**ItsAWave** posted 3 days ago

Some of the pictures are stolen from my friend’s blog. Go visit her blog  here , she deserves the attention much more than this thief.

96 Comments 👍 1.4k 👎 256

  


**Crockpot** posted 3 days ago

Holy shit! This ass straight up copypasted that blog. 53 followers to the 20k+ of this one

I’m so sorry for your friend. Anyone who still follows this bitch after this can fuck off

35 Comments 👍 1.1k 👎 27

  


Continue reading thread...

  


**FashionistaQueen** posted 3 days ago

I went through the whole blog to find an after picture for the skin routine thing she posted and funny how the only “selfie” is the pixel art icon. How many big name fashion blogs can get away with that these days? Guess everyone but @NessieHeartland Very Interesting #IStandWithNessie

89 Comments 👍 1.3k 👎 65

  


**ToThineOwnSelf** posted 2 days ago

It’s gotta be a new rich pig from Scumland. Be happy we didn’t get any selfies. These

pigs are covered in pus filled boils. Ugly doesn’t begin to cover it.

47 Comments 👍 1.5k 👎 96

  


**WhatYouDeserve** posted 1 day ago

If you’re ugly and you know it go and die @noIX Yeah, I clapped. Edit: EWW there's a pic up NSFL

22 Comments 👍 1.8k 👎 512

  


Continue reading thread…

  


Isa clicked on every read more option, skimmed through every comment, breath heavy and dry in his throat. The few in his defense disappeared into an ocean of hatred for the thief he had become in front of an audience larger than he had ever hoped for. With so many eyes watching, his secret was laid bare. The monstrosity behind the sweet and lovable face on his icon was revealed to the world and their reactions were much worse than he could have imagined.

Isa wiped his wet eyes furiously and kept scrolling. 

A glance at his dwindling follower count made his stomach turn. This kind of love was conditional; it always had been, and he’d known as much, but he’d never thought having it ripped away would hurt as much as it did.

“Why…” Isa breathed.

He clicked on the counter to reveal his list of followers. He scrolled through it as if he would remember each name no longer on the list. And what then? Isa fumbled for the names. He would make a list and turn it to Terra. “Here,” he’d say, “feed for the monsters.” Remorse wouldn’t be as overwhelming as satisfaction. Remorse was temporary like hunger; it would come and go until it served no purpose. Remorse was a performance to assure others that, yes, humanity still lingered in this body, and he would go through the trouble of performing it.

His tears were warm against his cold cheeks.

It was his actions that had led him here, part of him was willing to admit as much, but it didn’t silence the loud voice inside wondering why they had to leave. Isa went back to the comments to keep reading. He embraced every word thrown his way, adjusting to the heavy burden he had cursed himself with.

The door squeaked open.

Isa closed the tab and opened a new one.

Terra squeezed himself through the crack when the piles of clothes on the floor kept the door from opening any further. Isa gave him a quick glance, tempted to run to him for comfort.

_Make them stop. Ruin them. Separate them from all that is dear to them. Terra, please._

Terra’s white bangs looked moist and in disarray from all the annoyed huffing and puffing. He didn’t say anything at first. It was dark in the room with the curtains shut. The only light came from the computer screen. One step in, Terra stumbled over a small pile of clothes, unable to find footing in the dark.

Isa decided it was best to ignore him.

The effort Terra put into coming in was pointless. Terra knew as much, too. 

One glance at Isa’s room was often enough for Terra to turn back, but on few occasions, like today, he stayed. He flicked on the light, went outside and came back with the laundry basket. All clothes that were outside of closed drawers were tossed in the basket, bed-clothes included. Plates, bowls, glasses and cutlery were put into the dishwater twice over to get hardened leftovers off the porcelain.

Terra wiped off every surface with a wet rag; he wiped over Isa’s hands when he refused to stop typing on his keyboard and shoved his hands off the keyboard to beat out dust and crumbs from it that were never there. Isa liked to keep a tidy office, after all.

“Get up,” Terra demanded once the room was clean.

Isa scrolled down D&S’s website for something pretty, his swallowed tears a jagged knot in his throat. Their summer collection had been announced just a few hours ago and they had early bird specials.

“Get up,” Terra repeated. He grabbed Isa by the arm to pull him to his feet.

Isa tried to pull his arm back, but didn’t stand a chance. And so he used the only technique that had ever worked in his favor; he went limp like roadkill. 

Terra seemed prepared. He dragged Isa out of the bedroom and into the bathroom by his arms. With the glass shower doors within sight, Isa grabbed onto whatever he could reach, but Terra moved him around like a rag doll. 

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. The lengths Terra was willing to go for his will to be done had been humiliating at first, but humiliation, much like hunger and remorse, was temporary. The toll it took on Terra was clear; he tried to be gentle, tried not to grip Isa hard enough to leave bruises. Terra played the part of an aggressor and it was a look he wasn't fond of. Isa, on the other hand, didn’t care how he looked in these encounters – he was more than happy testing the boundaries of their bonds over and over again, certain it’d tear down eventually. Terra and Aqua’s love for him was much like those of his followers, conditional.

The water splashed out cold from the wide shower-head. Terra turned it on mid-struggle. It’s how he always won. Isa’s resistance became half-hearted, petty, rather than a serious attempt to get away. He scratched Terra’s strong arms with uneven and sharp stubs-for-nails until Terra let go of him. 

Terra caught his breath as he grabbed a bottle with scented soap and reached it to Isa.

“Will you or do I have to?” he asked, a familiar scowl of disappointment and frustration on his face. He watched Isa snatch the bottle from him. “Turn around.”

Isa turned around, knuckles white with the grip he had on the bottle. He saw it then; the scissors and comb on top of the wide faucet. Terra reached for them blindly. Isa grabbed it before Terra could, immediately swinging towards him with the blade. 

Isa would’ve stabbed him through the hand if he had been quick enough, but Terra reacted faster, twirling him back around towards him. He slammed his forehead against the bridge of Isa’s nose hard enough for it to feel like Isa’s brain rattled in his skull. 

The taste of blood came almost immediately, red cascading over his lips with the running water. Terra held him up by his collar; he was breathing hard, shaking his head slowly with eyes closed, stilling himself as if he was counting to ten.

“Why do you do this, Isa?” he asked at last, concerned. His voice was low, gentle and warm. The kindness in his tone cradled Isa against his wishes, awakening a different, dull hunger in him. “Have I not proven my worth to you? Mm?” 

Isa gagged at the overwhelming taste of blood. The nauseating distraction made him easy to lead. Terra held Isa against his chest and massaged shampoo into Isa’s hair.

“Why did you want to upset Aqua? You know how long it takes me to get her back in order. Do you want her to get lost in the Outside?”

Isa leaned into the embrace. The angle against Terra’s shoulder allowed the blood to flow away from his mouth, taking the worst of the taste away. Terra’s heart beat loudly; it reverberated through Isa’s chest and became a mirror image of his own heartbeat. The sensation was forgein. Hugs were scarce by choice. Isa didn’t like the reminder that he was by all accounts a body of flesh and blood. 

The dripping of water against the sea blue tiles was soothing, as was Terra’s care for him when he washed his hair and combed through every knot. Isa hid his face in the nape of Terra’s neck when Terra brushed against the scars on the side of his face.

The hiding place didn’t last long.

Terra grabbed him by the collar again and squished his cheeks, moving Isa’s head around slowly.

“That’s gonna leave a bruise,” Terra said and shook his head solemnly at the state of Isa’s face. “You look awful.”

Isa’s heart dropped. He searched Terra’s face for any sign that his observation came from a place of fondness or maybe a place of regret. Instead, Terra’s expression was hollow and desperate, his face foreign in the falling water.

Isa had seen this before. Out on a crowded street, people wailed with grief as they walked toward the Wheel. 

_The King is dead, the King is dead._

Someone with Terra’s face had stood in the rain with them and vowed that all would be made right. But nothing ever was again. Nothing, until Terra brought him out of the memory with soft kisses around his nose and one on the tip before he stood back.

Isa sobbed with relief.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Isa. I just want us all to be happy together. You, me and Aqua. Together like we’ve always been. Like we should be. Promise me you won’t make me hurt you again?”

Isa nodded.

“Good.”

Terra undressed and washed him. He clothed him in a bathrobe and had him sit on a stool in front of the mirror. With such bright lights, Isa could see the ridges of the scars on the side of his face, just barely covered by his wet hair. If the scissors had been within reach, he would’ve tried for them again, but Terra had them in hand to even out Isa’s frayed hair. His face, particularly his nose, was red and stuffy.

“That helmet you taunted Aqua with, where did you find it?” Terra rolled Isa’s hair around his hand like rope, forcing Isa to keep his head straight whenever he tried to look away from the mirror.

“Someone sent it to me,” Isa stuttered.

“When?” Terra asked with the gentle concern of a parent and watched Isa through the mirror.

“I don’t know – some months ago maybe.”

“Did it come with a name?” Terra’s grip tightened, but in the reflection it seemed like he was looking where to part Isa’s hair.

“Only mine.”

“Will you tell me if you receive something else with your name on it?”

Isa nodded.

Terra’s reflection smiled.

Usually, these conversations between him and Terra were followed by orders to dine together, if for no other reason than that was what families did together. Today, however, Terra wasn’t interested. Apparently, he didn’t want to undo all of the ‘progress’ they had made by giving Isa a chance to ruin it all by vomiting after dinner. The answers Terra had gotten were satisfactory. Terra led Isa back to his cleaned bedroom and without a word, he put the door back onto its hinges, allowing Isa to lock himself back in.

  


***

Every three hours, a drone flew past in the distance. Isa had pulled his curtains aside, eyes watering when he squinted at the light pouring in. Like the alien on the deserted island, he paced with purpose. He dug clothes out of his drawers and tossed them to the floor and onto his neatly made bed, with still plenty left to spare.

His phone was on the window-sill with a number to the Outside already dialed for when the drone looped back around. Isa hoped it would come close enough for him to snatch and hack.

Photographs and studying from afar only yielded so much information. The alien was restless, wary of the water and the noose. Hunger led him to chase doves and create tools made of the waste that washed ashore.

The bliss on his face as he ate the meager meat was puzzling; the birds grew up eating garbage from areas with unadulterated filth. Some unfortunate days were spent squatting in bushes, hand gripping at nearby branches to keep steady. On these days, the alien walked out of the bushes much later with a pale face, sweaty with effort. Yet, the alien still preferred the birds over the native mushrooms.

Isa had a world of questions for him.  _What's your name? Why do you eat if it hurts? Is the moon as spectacular as she seems?_

The alien liked to talk to himself. Isa often saw his lips moving as he gesticulated to the air in front of him like he was upset. If Isa flipped through his pictures he could see it like a small clip, the breeze ruffling his bright red hair, the scowl on his face and the short sleeves of his jacket hugging his forearms a little too tightly.

Isa wanted to know what the alien's voice sounded like; if he'd speak the same language and if he'd be willing to take Isa with him when rescue came. None of that was possible from his bedroom, high upon a skyscraper. Isa was a speck to the alien. He needed to get closer.

The drone’s buzzing was distant, but Isa recognized it immediately and hurried to the phone. Each signal crackled in the phone’s speaker. The Inside wasn't meant to contact the Outside. The drone knew it as well as Isa and broke from its path to inspect.

Isa gripped the sides of the wide-open window and climbed onto the ledge. At this height, the building seemed to bend the further down it went. The call of the void was strong. It’d be so easy to let his grip slip.

Isa took a deep breath. 

There’d be other days to answer the call; today he wanted to make contact with the alien. Isa held onto the window and stretched his other hand toward the drone to entice it with the forbidden signal. The drone lingered in place, its red LED lights blinking.

"Come here, come here." Isa clicked his tongue at the drone like he’d call to a cat.

The drone moved closer. Isa dropped his phone, nearly swearing when his foot slipped in a failed attempt to grab his phone and drone all at once. He managed to hold onto the drone, imagining the sound his phone made as it bounced against the bent facade of the building. 

With a groan, he pulled at the drone, window-sill digging into the arch of his feet. Once the drone was halfway through the window, he threw himself back into his room, back hitting the floor.

The drone buzzed. Its rotors worked at max capacity to get out of Isa's tight embrace. Isa struggled against it. He searched it frantically for a power switch, mindful of the rotors.

His fingers found hold.

_Click_ . 

The buzzing died out.

Isa stayed on the floor to catch his breath. His nose squeaked with every inhale and he laughed with the weight of the large drone on him. Once he had strength back in his arms, he shoved the drone aside and went to sit at his desk where, in the bottom drawer under lock and key, he'd hidden a brand new Dream VR package. 

It was loaded with every map he’d ever bought, every skin, color, piece of clothing, and gear. The world would be at the tip of the alien’s fingers and he’d share that world with Isa. With the battery pack attached, the VR weighed a good twenty-two pounds, meaning that the barrels on the drone would have to come off before Isa could attach the package to it. The journey to the deserted island would be a perilous one with the presence of other drones around, keeping guard and shooting down anything that was too far off-course. His drone had to fly high. 

Isa searched his drawers for a screwdriver, finding one under his bed amongst a whisk, a spatula, a fork and strewn combs. The handle was made of emerald green glass. It reflected another room, a lighter room with a disarray of metals and cables, not clothes and cans. A blink and it was gone. The screwdriver was a perfect fit, but no screw would budge no matter which way Isa tried to turn them. His hand slipped from the handle repeatedly, his fingers burned and his joints ached when he sat back. 

Isa chewed on his thumb. This was too complicated. Stupid. Fruitless. After all, taking drones down was illegal. Hacking them and using them for personal purposes was surely illegal twice over. If he were ever caught, they’d kill him and bring him back to life just to get their due. No one would believe him if he said he’d found an alien from the moon who was terrified of water.

Isa got back into his chair and opened one of many tabs with pictures of cute dresses. He scrolled obsessively until the dresses and skirts were naught but blurred lines of color. As he scrolled, however, a thought lit up like a cartoonish light bulb in his numbing mind. There was an old drill above his closet that Terra had left when he’d put the bed together.

Isa jumped out of his seat and pushed the chair up to the closet. Stepping onto it, he balanced himself before searching for the small cardboard box blindly on his tip-toes. His fingertips caught fine and coarse dust as he moved his hand around, leaving streaks on the surface, until finally, at the very back, was the drill. 

“Make sure you get the right head with it,” said a familiar voice casually. It was neither Terra’s nor Aqua’s. A man’s voice with the power to make his heart flutter.

Isa coaxed it out of the closet corner.

“Which head is the right one?” Isa asked.

“Whichever can drill you open.”

Isa whipped his head back. There was no one there. Only the curtains swaying in the breeze. Isa turned back slowly. It had been nothing.

With the drill in his hands, he jumped back down and got to work. He didn’t mind, as the screws dropped to the floor and soon joined the rest of forgotten items under Isa’s bed. They weren’t needed for the next step.

Isa had stolen duct tape from Terra’s office down the hall, made specifically for his military-grade inventions. If it was enough to keep prototypes together, it was good enough for twenty-two pounds and a small trip to Deserted Island. 

Isa replaced its OS chip with a homemade one and switched it on to see the lights blink in the order he’d programmed them to: blue, blue, red. Blue, blue, red. And then it shifted to the issued colors: angry green, livid yellow, and fuming orange.

Send-off was all that was left. The sun was setting. The island was hidden in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Bridge. Isa setup his camera and searched for the alien in the dark, hoping he hadn’t gone to bed yet so he’d hear the airdrop. 

The alien was talking to himself again, or to the dying fire in front of him. He pointed toward the City as his mouth grew bigger to fit every loud word. Isa tried to make out the words, and could only see profanities.

“What is he doing?” Isa mumbled, concerned when the alien began to wiggle.

The alien dropped his pants and thrusted his hips toward the City in an unending tirade. He turned around and showed his bottom all the while raising his middle finger at the silhouette.

Isa held his hand over his mouth, eyes wide, uncertain whether to keep looking or to avert his gaze at the alien’s nudity. Given the time for an honest decision, he would’ve stared indefinitely. There was an undeniable beauty to him. Every feature, every line and curve poked at a dull hunger that refused to go away, and with it came a need to vanquish the space between them. The alien had faint scars on his torso that shifted to a darker color than his skin in the light of the weak bonfire.

Isa held his hand against his abdomen; five scars shaped like the scratch of a tiger because  _the bullets shot by the drones shatter on impact for maximum damage_ . The same voice from before echoed in the room and faded into a faint headache that lodged behind Isa’s left eye.

Isa shook his head.

Isa had dressed the package in a white sheet and written DO NOT HURT in big bold letters on it. If the alien was anything like the monsters that tried to invade the City, he’d make the package suffer for what he couldn’t do to the silhouette of the City that upset him so. Whether the alien decided to follow the instruction or not, Isa would be ready by his camera to catch a glimpse of the alien's ritual in the nude.

As soon as the drone took off, blinking in the same colors as his former comrades, Isa sat down by his computer to follow the drone’s new path high above the others.

Estimated time to destination: 14 minutes and 37 seconds.

Many things could go wrong and Isa ran through them all in sing song, eyes fixated on the dark pixels moving across the map on his screen.

  


[NEW MESSAGE: DELIVERY PICKUPPICKUPPICKUPPPPPP]

  


The cursor hovered over the notification while Isa chewed on his thumb and shook his leg. He opened it.

  


01001001 01010011 01001100 01000001 00100000 01001110 01000101 01000111 01010010 01000001 00101110 00100000 01000100 01000101 01010011 01010100 01010010 01001111 01011001 00100000 01000110 01001001 01010010 01000101 01010111 01000001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 00100000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 00100000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01001101 01001101 01001101 01001110 01001110 01001110 00100000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01011000 01001101 01001101 01001110 01001110 01001110 01010011 01010011

  


MESSAGE CORRUPTED. UNABLE TO DOWNLOAD CONTENT.

  


Isa twirled a lock of hair around his forefinger and pulled hard enough for his scalp to tingle.  _ISLA NEGRA. DESTROY FIREWALL XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXMMMNNN XXXXMMNNNSS_ the message said. Corrupted messages were common. Isa got the gist of them. Place and action is all he needed to know.

Isla Negra was on the new pirate map with countless nodes that split into various different scenarios Isa hadn’t explored yet. The data mined content was extensive and yet another thing Isa hadn’t bothered with. It was a world full of water and people. The alien wasn’t fond of water, and Isa wasn’t fond of people, especially if he had to be one too. 

Dreams is where he went to flutter his wings like a butterfly and dirty himself in pollen until his legs were yellow; it’s where he approached exotic flowers under trees in fields of lavender and felt his heart spin, not beat, in a fragile chest covered in gleaming emerald green feathers. Isla Negra was an island that required the activation of three nodes in order to unlock it on the map. An experience best suited for those who wanted to reveal assertive sides of themselves and build character.

Isa made a noise of disgust. 

He minimized the screen with the message and watched the drone instead. It was fast approaching the alien who had probably put his pants back on now that the sun had set. Isa pondered whether he should check to make sure before drop off but lingered in his chair for too long.

Airdrop in: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1…

Processing…

Airdrop complete.

Enter command: _

Isa scrambled back to his camera and struggled to zoom in on the alien on the island. The lens was out of focus while Isa tried to adjust the zoom with trembling fingers. His mouth was dry. Anyone would hear a twenty-two pound package drop behind them.

“Where are you, where are you…?” Isa mumbled. “Please…”

The mess of red appeared from behind a bush down from the fire. The alien walked out of it on feet and hands like a chimp and stopped to assert the situation. His pants barely covered his rear, but it seemed far down his list of priorities to pull them up.

He approached the box cautiously, long stick in hand to poke it before he got any closer. Even when it was clear that the box wouldn’t explode, the alien backed away, attention turned up to the skies. He could be waiting for help from his kin while they sorted a new ship for him, but the package wasn’t that. The package contained only a tool to escape the now; it fixed nothing. 

The alien opened the box and flipped through the manual Isa had put together using only pictures to explain the workings of the VR. He’d used a few of his many, _many_ pictures of the alien to illustrate each step. In lonely times like these, he thought the alien would appreciate the sentiment, only he had odd ways of showing it. The alien ran his free hand through his hair, face tense when he flipped through the manual, occasionally looking around as if expecting someone to show, until he got to the last page.

  


_Best Alien,_

_I don’t know if you understand any of this, but hopefully the pictures will go some way toward helping. Please make use of this gift I humbly give you so that we can meet in our dreams. I’ll wear a sunflower. Please see picture below._

  


_Yours truly,_

_An observer_

  


The alien retreated to his bunker, a blue skiff with a large plastic goose on it. It had several knocked out windows and the goose had a faint painted on bow tie. They escaped when the Pillars of Existence were blown up and flooded the inner city. Aqua had a picture of her and Terra in one of them out on the artificial pond that was now a lake. It stood on a shelf to the right of the television. The upper corner was shattered last Isa saw it, but things around the house had a way of mending themselves.

The goose sheltered the alien from Isa’s prying gaze no matter how much he angled and repositioned the camera.

Isa gave up. He flopped down on his chair and sulked. First contact had been underwhelming. The alien was terrified, perhaps convinced that only enemies would make contact. He was scarred like a soldier and might carry secrets like one. Isa had plenty of his own with orders to choose death over speaking. It was yet another thing they had in common. Isa scribbled it down. He’d have to make a good impression when they met. A revamp of his avatar was a good place to start. 

Isa opened another program to search through the data mining for Isla Negra while he changed his avatar to something suitable for their next encounter. His current avatar was sweet-looking and she’d only need a few changes to mirror the alien more. Dimples when she smiled, a nick on one eyebrow, slightly rounder cheeks and pastel-colored nail polish. Isa chewed on his thumb as he looked at the color palette available for nail polish. Pastel yellow would go well with the sunflower accessory. That’d be the only remarkable addition. He’d let the VR choose the most inconspicuous clothing available for this map. NPCs tended to pick up on customized content because of course, most users wanted others to take notice of their expensive limited edition accessories that unlocked special nodes.

  


[NEW MESSAGE: DREAM VR ID080814 IS ONLINE]

  


Isa didn’t give his watch a glance. He switched off the screen, pulled his curtain over the open window and rushed out of his shoes and into his closet. He swore at the crackling of the bubble wrap under his feet as he switched the television on. As long as there were bubbles left to pop on the upper half, he’d be able to wake himself up if this turned into a nightmare.

Once in bed, closet door closed, Isa put on his VR helmet with trembling hands. It would rest against his bruised nose. The pain made Isa’s eyes water. He laid still for a moment, staring into the introduction screen for a good minute before he could bring himself to do anything.

  


DREAMLIGHT INC.

The Dream of Your Dreams©

  


Paired Unit ID080814 is Online. Do you wish to connect?

> Yes

No

  


One click and the simple introduction screen fell away in small cubes and transported Isa to a land far beyond this one where the smell of barbecued pig on a spit came to him before anything else.

Isa shielded his eyes from the bright sun on the clear blue sky as he walked past tall palm trees on a sandy path toward a shanty town by a harbor. A woman ran past him, chasing a chuckling toddler in a white nightgown.

“Come here, monkey,” she said and waddled toward the little boy when she was close. He screeched in delight when she picked him up and walked back to a small wooden shack with the word REDEMPTION carved into the wall and filled in with red paint. Undoubtedly, one of the many nodes around waiting to be activated.

_Monkey. I’m Monkey._ Isa locked eyes with the child, the thief, and stuttered quietly. The child’s cheerful cooing was an insult, a judgmental finger pointed squarely at Isa’s failure to maintain any kind of love.  _I was loved,_ Isa thought desperately when the child laughed in the arms of the woman pinching its cheeks. 

Isa almost ran into the small wooden shack, determined to shove the child to the side and take its place. He had been held, he had been cherished; he hadn’t spent his whole life as an outcast. He had no clear memories of that life, but he knew, at the sound of the child’s laughter, he knew that once upon a time he’d been loved.

The door closed behind them. The sound of the woman’s voice and the baby’s laughter vanished in the wind. Isa took deep breaths to gather himself and rein in the tears threatening to spill over his cheeks once more.

It was too easy to leave for them, for them and everyone else. _Whatever,_ Isa thought bitterly. A new life awaited him on the moon alongside the alien.

The road opened up by the harbor and split into various paths into the town. Isa stood frozen while he took in the sights of the sparkling blue sea on one side, and the lively vendors selling fruits, vegetables and pottery on the other. His vision blurred as if there was more than one image loading and overlaying the other. The vendors were still there, but in colorful stalls with intricate swirling carvings around a fountain with a marble cherub in the middle of it. The maps could be glitching and overlapping. Isa turned around to let the image reload over the ocean instead, but the ocean was gone. In its stead was a residential area, and in front of him a gate with a sign over it that said  _Radiant Garden_ .

In a blink, it was gone.

“What…?” Isa breathed and shook his head.

He had updated the software and run a troubleshoot on the VR after last time. Firewalls were up so no one, unless ruthlessly dedicated, could hack the system. Everything was in working order.

“Annotation,” Isa said and opened a new window that looked like a lined notebook. “Reset VR to factory settings and reinstall Dreams after this session.”

  


New annotation saved.

Set a reminder?

Yes

> No

  


Isa closed the window and approached the vendors to test whether the glitch would appear again. But nothing happened. The vendors loaded perfectly, each movement as human-like as any other. Pale skin was shifting red in the sun, they had sun spots on their hands, and every time they announced to the world that they were selling the island’s sweetest pineapples, their wrinkles around eyes, mouth and nose became apparent. The man in front of Isa wore his hair in a white bandana that was shifting a light yellow with sweat.

“You’re doing an awful lot of staring, lass. Care to buy a pineapple? Half off, just for you,” he said, each word a round mess that came from his throat and made moving his lips an optional exercise.

Isa dug into the pockets of his long light purple dress for coins. The upper half of the dress wrapped around his torso tightly. The skirt looked layered as if he was wearing three to make it puffy. Despite the heat, he didn’t feel it, only the tulle around his legs whenever he moved. Wearing this in the waking world would be claustrophobic for anybody, but looking down at it, Isa wanted nothing more than to twirl in the sea breeze.

“Lass?” The man gave Isa the pineapple.

Isa went to pull on his hair but found nothing past the nib of his ear. He brushed a lock behind his ear instead, aware for the first time how naked he felt without his hair to hide behind. His fingers graced the side of his face, and instead of the ridges of burn marks, there was only plain skin.

“Do I look awful?” Isa asked the man, his voice nothing like his own, but soft and youthful and feminine.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, lass,” the man said with a wink. “On ya go before my missus throws me into the dog house.”

Isa smiled and went on his way, pineapple tucked between his arm and waist. Gripping it by the leaves wouldn’t do, they slipped right off. The fruit was ripe for eating, but Isa preferred to carry it around, like the sunflower pin in his hair.

By the jetty, in between two large palm trees, stood the alien. He was tall, his hair red as sunset. With skin as fair as a full moon, he wouldn't last long in the sun.  _Beautiful_ , Isa thought.

The alien hadn’t chosen an avatar, he’d come as himself. The avatar creator was complicated. It had intuitive controls but far too much to choose from. Isa knew the struggle, but had thought the alien, with his ability to fly spaceships to the moon, smart enough to figure it out. 

The alien moved his hand in controlled motions like he was scrolling through a file on a window invisible to Isa. Of all the pictures Isa had taken of him, none showed him as focused, not even when he hunted pigeons.

Isa approached him cautiously.

“Mr. Alien?”

A glance and the alien’s whole demeanor changed.

The frown smoothed into awe as his knees gave away and he dropped to the ground. Had the vendor not seen Isa as his avatar, he’d be running away with the certainty that the alien saw through the avatar and caught an eyeful of the monstrosity that hid behind it.

The alien didn’t flee in the other direction.

With chin trembling and tears slowly rolling down his face, the alien moved closer to Isa slowly and reached out both his hands to hold Isa’s like he was made of glass.

The alien wept and kissed his hand.

“You’re alive." He chuckled gleefully past sobs, "Xion."

  


  


  



	6. PAST: Soil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Reader: [FaultyParagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaultyParagon/pseuds/FaultyParagon)  
> 
> 
> ***

6

̷͓͆s̸̺͘ȍ̶͓̜̈́i̶͇͝l̶̨̜͗͊

  
  


The sand caved in under each heavy step toward the abandoned brick house in the Yellow Zone. Time was short. Whoever was dispatched to Lea’s shack to apprehend them would only need one sweeping look to find the ancient machine. It sat in a dark corner of his workshop. There were materials there as rare as a Core. Every piece of the almost-finished machine was a testament of betrayal; Lea had betrayed the Royal Family, the Citadel and their floating Wheel. They were the fabric of the world, the so-called Pillars of Reality. Where exactly machines and machine parts fit into that equation, Lea figured he was too stupid to understand. Neither were his to keep. 

After much deliberation, Lea concluded that there was only one way to save his ancient machine; he had to give it the Core and hope it could move on its own. It was too heavy to be carried even with Lea and Roxas in their best condition. Wounded as they were, they wouldn’t budge it an inch.

They got to the entrance of the Yellow Zone, a punched-in chain-link fence. The ground in this area was hard as if built upon concrete. Lea zipped up his brand new jacket up to his chin and sunk into the warmth of it. How much it would actually protect him in there was anybody’s guess. The jacket was more than what Roxas was wearing. The sun had set and any residual heat was too far into the sand to be of any help to Roxas in his thin jumpsuit.

“You’re staying here,” Lea said, determined. “You don’t have any gear and I’ll be a minute.”

“What are you getting?” Roxas’ pout was loud and clear.

“You’ll see,” Lea sighed.  _Always with the questions._

“Let me come with you,” Roxas pleaded. He grabbed Lea’s arm. “What if a Metal Bird comes along?”

“You crouch right there,” Lea pointed to two large rocks. “And you don’t move an inch. We’ve been through this.”

Roxas sulked. His bruises made him more pitiful than ever before. He hung his shoulders and dug his foot into the sand when he tried to kick it. He made it hard for Lea to maintain his determination. The nagging voice in Lea’s head listed the many reasons why it would be better to have Roxas come along. The bottom line boiled down to one question: how would Lea save Roxas from peril if he wasn’t there? This area was only marginally safer than the rest of the Yellow Zone.

Lea almost changed his mind. He turned with the intention of telling Roxas to follow him when the surroundings emitted a wheezing sound. Lea froze, eyes darting everywhere. He could hear the coughing and the desperate inhaling; how nails dug into the concrete floor until fingers bled. Lea had been present and he’d been able to do fuck all. 

Lea furrowed his brow, clearing his throat.

“It’s more dangerous out there than here, Roxas. Please… I’ll be back before you know it.”

At his age, Roxas thought he knew it all, but he hadn’t seen all of the dangers in the Exclusion Zone: monsters crawled out of any orifice, Metal Birds strayed from their paths and shot without warning, even without imminent threats the dangers were abundant. Everything in this area had once been a weapon; it was a phrase Lea had heard ad nauseum growing up. Those who forgot either perished or had to live with the reminder. 

Lea belonged to the latter group. He never thought he’d ever have to hear the reminder again after Isa moved to the City. Reckless curiosity and an inconspicuous switch had been all it took to upend their lives.

Roxas hid by the rocks. Lea left for the Yellow Zone only when he had to squint to make out Roxas' messy and light hair sticking out.

He jogged to the small cabin out by the border. The wheezing sound from the past followed him every step of the way, distorted by echo as if it came from outside of his head.

The switch Lea had pulled released a small puff of a nerve agent. To Lea it looked like a cloud of fairy dust, and in the dim sunlight that shone through the cracks in the cabin, Isa seemed otherworldly as he twirled in it. It had only been a few seconds. 

“Everything there was once a weapon,” Terra reminded Isa and Lea whenever they were ready to run out into their decaying world for adventures. 

Terra hadn’t said anything when he cradled Isa in his arms and sprinted back to their cottage. All there had been, all Lea had seen, past tears and sobs, was the unforgiving glare of a man who would’ve killed him had Isa not been struggling for air.

The past rang loudly in Lea’s ears when he ran into that same cabin with the red barrels and the prominent switch on the wall. He moved alongside the opposite wall until he got to where the blue line had led him before. He pulled out the brick and there, behind it, was the box, just as he had left it. 

The Core was still inside. 

Just two days ago he’d been sure he’d sell it. If the option had been available to him now, he would have, but if that Insomnia Group rep was willing to steal the screws, the gods only knew what she’d do with the Core.

Lea thumbed on the lid of the box. It’d be safe in the machine for a while. He’d switch it off once it was safe to sell again and find an alternate way to activate it once behind the City walls. The future was still bright.

Lea was about to leave when a bright blue light flashed from the outside. The burning metal of the chain-linked fence whistled and crackled until it became choked groans; it was the unmistakable sound of monsters. 

Lea held the box close to his chest and crouched. 

_"Tuck and roll like a ball,"_ said a soft voice that wasn’t his. _"Or the Fire Wall will get you."_

The voice sounded so much like a memory, like something innately his; something that was undeniably present but in a constant state of evanescence. Lea lowered his head and tucked the box against his knees until it cut into his thighs. His breathing was shallow. He tried to cling onto the voice, but the more he tried to remember, the more it sounded like himself.

The gurgling screams from outside came with the stench of burning hair. It demanded his attention. Lea’s bones ached hollow. The monster dragged itself across the ground littered with glass, screws and pieces of metal. Curiosity urged him to shuffle to the blown-out window and have a closer look, but the second flash of blue light cemented him to the corner where he was hiding.

Each horrifying noise began to take shape. Lea swore he heard words mangled in a mess of blood and burns.  _Help. Help me. Help me!_

Slowly, he placed his trembling hands over his ears. There was no telling what the monsters were capable of, what curses they mumbled for their gain. The twitch in his legs almost made him run outside, not to flee, but to see what he could do to save them. The urge came with a sense of panic. He had to do something. The curses were taking effect.

Lea laughed nervously when he heard the familiar buzzing of the Metal Birds. Their presence killed the urge to run outside; he knew what was coming. He braced himself for the deafening sound of the high impact bullets. First came the whirring, and then came the bangs. 

It hailed bullets for longer than was necessary. Nothing would’ve survived the first round. 

Lea didn’t move until all was silent. His legs were asleep, hummed like the white noise he got on his radio. Lea jumped on the spot for as long as it took, until the smoke dispersed, sweating in his new jacket. With the Metal Birds on high alert, he’d have to be quick and agile. 

Lea stepped out of the cabin and was met with the mush that was left of the monsters. He stumbled past them, stared to find anything resembling a face. There was nothing. It was all the encouragement he needed to run. 

Lea ran. 

He strained his ears for any buzzing, certain he’d hear the heartbeat of a rat had there been any.

The exit sign was a welcomed sight. Lea ran faster, as if he’d felt a monster breathe down his neck, and didn’t stop until he stood on the other side of the fence, gasping and wiping the sweat off his face with his sleeve.

Roxas didn’t emerge from behind the large rocks until Lea called for him. His attention was immediately drawn to the box Lea was holding under his arm, but he didn’t say a word. The scowl on his face added worry lines to his face that were beyond his years. 

They had to save every breath for the jog up the steep hill on a road of mud and gravel. Instead of going straight ahead, Lea led them past brown bushes and into an old dead forest of decaying white trunks. Any misstep on a field of branches, big and small, was plenty for a symphony of creaks that would attract the Metal Birds. The trees would deter them.

“Lea…” Roxas’ voice trembled. He grabbed onto Lea’s arm and gave his surroundings a sweeping look of panic.

The whirring from up ahead could only mean one thing; they had surrounded Lea’s shack.

“They won’t see us if we go in through the workshop,” Lea said confidently.

Four Metal Birds scoured the area with bright searchlights. Lea and Roxas sat hunched by a trunk for a couple of minutes to observe their paths and count the seconds they had to make it inside without being discovered. 

There was a two-minute window. Almost too good to be true. Still, Lea didn’t hesitate at the start of the next opening. Roxas followed him in a short sprint to the workshop. They leaped through a window covered by a black plastic bag that blended into the scorched color of the wall.

“Roxas, stay back for a bit,” Lea said in a low voice once they were in the fragile safety of the workshop.

“Why?” Roxas crossed his arms. The fear in his voice that had urged him to seek protection behind Lea turned sour.

“Because I don’t know if this is radioactive, but I’m gonna crack it open to find out,” Lea sighed and rolled his eyes. Why else would he ask Roxas to stand back? He’d rarely kept secrets from Roxas, and when he did keep secrets, it was for Roxas' own good. “Please?”

Roxas took one reluctant step out of the workshop into the rest of the shack. He lingered by the doorway.

Lea searched his wonky drawers for an old dosimeter he’d found some time ago. It wasn’t as good as the one he’d left behind on his bike by the Southern Gate into the City, but it would have to do for now. 

The dosimeter crackled slightly as Lea put it over the Core. No leakages.

“Alright, you can come back in,” Lea said and wiped his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.

“What is that?” Roxas demanded as soon as he laid eyes on the Core.

“Nothing.” Lea shrugged. “Just some old stuff – you know how they were, the Ancients, everything they made was shiny.”

“You’ve never made me leave the room for just stuff,” Roxas said.

“Well, because… because I didn’t have the time to analyze it on site.” Lea fiddled with the side of the box. “When you see what I’ve found, I’ve already gone through the whole cleansing process.”

"I've seen that shape before." Roxas pointed at it then slowly made a fist that he pressed to his chest. "It's a heart. The doctor said that a heart is the size of a fist and showed us a picture. They look the same. Mine and it are the same. Aside from the blood, I guess."

Lea fidgeted. He drummed his fingers against the sides of the box and made impatient noise with his mouth.  _The same… The same… They're not the same._ _Roxas would never betray me._

“I’ll be honest with you,” Lea began, a speech tic he always realized was a poor choice only after he’d opened his mouth.

“For a change you mean?” Roxas muttered, quietly enough for Lea to ignore it.

“It’s a Core.”

“What?!” Roxas grabbed onto Lea’s arm, shaking him. “Woah. Is that why they’re after you? You’re not gonna sell it? Lea? What’s going on?”

“Can you just – shhh. You’re stressing me out.” Lea took a deep breath to calm down, pacing and rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension with Roxas hanging onto him. It gave him enough time to pick and choose what to tell Roxas. “I was gonna sell it, but I went to sell some screws in the City and they wouldn’t let me, which meant no bail money and I ran… with the screws. So they’ve got me pegged as a thief. Those fuckers, after everything I’ve collected for them.”

“You were gonna bail me out again?” Roxas asked softly, smiling.

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” Lea felt his cheeks shift red. He pulled his arm away to get to the machine sitting in the corner. “The plan is to hide the Core in this one.” Lea nodded at the secret in the corner. “It’s too heavy to move on my own, and if they find this collection, they’ll have my head in a bread basket by tomorrow morning.”

“Right, but are you sure you built it right? You’re always telling me how dangerous all of this is. What if it goes berserk and kills us all?”

“What’s with the grim scenarios? How about putting some good vibes out here?”

“Sorry,” Roxas said earnestly.

Lea took the Core in his hand and inspected it closely until he found what he was looking for: a screw head made to fit only a particular set of key-rex screws. He only had three out of seven screws in his possession. The Core would be hanging by a thread. Maybe a slap on the machine’s back would be enough to switch it off. 

Roxas crouched down next to Lea, his head in his hands while he watched the machine's mess of different-sized transparent plates, and the array of cables and tubes underneath. The place where the Core was supposed to be was to the left of the machine’s chest, like on a human. The chest cavity meant to fit the Core, opened with a small hatch. Inside, it had the necessary ports to connect the Core to the body of the machine. The Core’s edges lit up gold at the first connection and projected letters in an orbit.

“What’s it say?” Roxas asked.

“I…” Lea sighed and squinted as he leaned in closer. “Uh, let’s see… it says...” Lea stared at the letters for a few seconds before he reached for a stub of a pen and wrote the letters onto his wooden workshop bench:  _Matthaeus 6:10._ “I’ll figure it out later. We’re being circled by Birds, remember?”

“And if it’s a warning?”

“We’ll find out the hard way.”

Lea connected the remaining cables into the right ports. Each new connection made the letters move faster in their orbit until it seemed like there were three orbits. Nothing was shining an ominous red so far. Only gold. No machine warning he’d come across had ever been anything but red. At worst, it was a canister of blinding gas the Metal Birds had been fond of for a while. Both Lea and Roxas had survived those in the past. 

One last click and the letters came to an abrupt halt. An electric shock had Lea pull his hands away just as the hatch slammed shut.

"Fuck!"

Lea pushed Roxas back as every transparent plate clicked into place with the same sound as the hatch. The gold bled into the multitude of tubes inside the machine, swirling faster and faster until the gold began to shift color. The plates darkened. The whirring sound of machinery leaked from the machine faster and faster until it became a steady beat.

“Activation initiated,” said a distorted voice from within it.

It clenched its fists first and then spread its fingers wide. It did the same with its feet. The steady beat disappeared as the plates went through another transformation. It became skin. A young woman took shape before them, the transformation going through each part of her body, from her feet to her head, illuminating the parts being diagnosed and adjusting the plates. 

Her hair grew out last. It was a dark and short mess that fell over her forehead and down her ears. A plate was missing and left a large bald spot on the left side of her head. Lea rubbed his chest as if trying to keep his heart from stopping at every step of the transformation. His mouth was a desert, his hands shaking with fear of failure.

“Human lifeforms detected within a thirty feet radius,” said the distorted voice. “Clear the area to complete the activation.”

Lea grabbed Roxas by the collar and ran out of the workshop. Thirty feet was a big ask and would put them right in the path of the Metal Birds outside. Still, they sprinted across the shack, out of the workshop past the living area and into Lea’s cramped bedroom. Lea flipped his bed onto its side, the duct-taped thin mattresses turned toward the workshop, and ushered Roxas behind it.

“You think this is thirty feet?” Roxas asked, his face pale.

“I guess we’re about to find out.” Lea hoped his smile was as carefree as he needed it to be, but Roxas’s gulp made it clear that his smile had been all teeth.

A blast of light blinded them and the pressure wave that followed slammed the bed against them. It shattered on impact. Lea hid his face behind his hands and kicked with his feet to get the debris off, but ended up in a fight with his collection of mattresses and the stuffing which had been squeezed out of them. If any of that spectacle had made it out of the shack, they had about thirty seconds to run for cover before the Metal Birds began to shoot indiscriminately.

“Roxas?” Lea called with urgency.

“I’m alive, but barely,” Roxas groaned and pushed a piece of wood away to look at his arm. “I don’t have half your bed sticking out of my tummy, have I?”

“No, Roxas, what the fuck – why would you even say that?” Lea hurried to him and shoved the debris aside.

“Because it feels like it! Ugh. Did a bomb go off?”

“The Birds are about to go off. We gotta run.”

“Lea…” Roxas squawked.

“Up on your feet.” Lea held his hand out for Roxas impatiently.

Roxas shook his head and shoved Lea’s hand away to point past him. The horror in Roxas’ eyes made Lea’s stomach drop. He turned around slowly. 

There stood the machine looking like any other girl with a bald spot on the side of her head.

“Activation of Unit IGPXIV complete,” she said, her voice still distorted. “Security protocol 1125 breached. Human lifeforms should always stand at a minimum of thirty feet from the activating unit, preferably behind protective walls to avoid injury. Requesting status report: are you injured?”

“Uh…” Lea fumbled.

“She’s naked,” Roxas whispered and earned a blind slap from Lea that made him bump his head against the wall.

“No injuries,” Lea said and took off his jacket. “We, all of us, have to go though. Right now. So put this on,” Lea helped the machine into his jacket and pulled the zipper all the way up to her chin, making sure he didn’t touch her to avoid any sudden blasts.

“Leaving is not advisable. There are four hostile machines nearby. The risk of injury is high.”

“Yeah, definitely, but I’ll take my chances with an injury. Death not so much. Alright? Let’s dash before they get their friends over.”

“Understood. I have calculated the escape route with the lowest probability for injury and death. Please follow me.”

“After you,” Lea said with a polite smile as he pulled Roxas onto his feet. 

He could barely hear himself speak. The machine worked. It moved around like a person, the way it was intended to move. He had built it from scratch, figured it out like puzzle made of a shattered vase; he, whom all thought to be stupid, all mettle and no wit. If only they could see his life’s work now and choke on every prejudice they had subjected him to.

The machine led them through the devastation left of Lea’s shack. The doorway to the workshop was at least four times as big, Lea’s duct-taped furniture was in pieces; his pristine, empty and decorative cans were all buckled and strewn across the floor. The Metal Bird Grabber lay in two pieces in a corner of the workshop along with other debris from Lea’s creations; it was the cherry of devastation right on top of a turd shaped like a flip-off. 

The machine walked them out the same way they had come in; through the plastic-covered window in the workshop and into the dead forest of white trunks.

The Metal Birds flocked around Lea’s shack. Not a single one was shooting. A few were prodding through the damaged roof. The same Metal Birds blinked with stronger lights, a red and yellow that traveled high through the forest and reflected in the sand in the other direction. The clown patrol was incoming.

“The clowns are gonna level my shack to the ground,” Lea said with an empty stare. The prospect of homelessness dulled Lea’s euphoria.

“They’re not gonna find anything,” Roxas said reassuringly.

“Exactly. So they’ll level it. To make the trip worthwhile.”

“Maybe you can ask the machine for help?” Roxas suggested. “Another one of those blasts for the clowns.”

“Yeah, that’ll get me off the radar.” Lea rolled his eyes.

“I’m just trying to help.” Roxas muttered.

“Your attention, please,” said the machine from behind them. “The current radiation levels in this area are not fit for human habitat. Suggestion: move to an area with lower radiation levels.”

“We don’t get any lower than this,” Lea said. “The levels are fine.”

“Uh, Lea?” Roxas tapped Lea’s back.

“What?” Lea snapped.

“I think she’s eating the tree,” Roxas said and pointed to where the machine stood behind them.

The machine had peeled off a piece of bark from one of the trunks and took a generous bite. The wood crunched as she chewed and savored it like it was a piece of crispy fried Spam.

“Can I have some?” Roxas asked, salivating.

“Are you concussed?” Lea interrupted and pushed Roxas’s arm down before he could accept any piece of bark from the machine.

“Acid rain corroded this tree. Further analysis is needed for a solution,” the machine said. “The battered human does not have the required functions to assist in the analysis, but the offer is much appreciated.”

“You’re welcome,” Roxas said and smiled sheepishly.

“Can you not get attached please?” Lea sighed.

“I’m not! I’m just trying to be nice. She said ‘thank you’ and I said ‘you’re welcome’,” Roxas said, exasperated, and paused. “I didn’t ask if she’s got a name.”

“IGP-something. It’s a machine!”

“The name of Unit IGPXIV is Xion. What is your name?” she asked.

“Fuck sake,” Lea mumbled.

“I’m Roxas!”

“Roxas, Fuck-Sake, thank you for activating me. I have been on standby for one-hundred-and-fifty-five years, eight months, two weeks and three days. Reason: EGM blast that caused spontaneous disassembling for protection.”

The machine didn’t look a day over seventeen, even with her bald spot. The jacket made her seem smaller. Lea searched for any signs of aging he’d find on a human. Sunspots, wrinkles, saggy skin, like he hadn’t watched the transformation from plates and a bunch of tubes turn into whatever stood before him now. 

One-hundred-and-fifty-five years was inconceivable. Only buildings and trash survived for that long. Humans were fragile and succumbed to illnesses as soon as their hair turned gray. Lea rejected the idea of anything sentient surviving a century, all the while reminding himself that the girl before them wasn’t sentient; not in any way that mattered. She felt and perceived for a specific function, not for living.

“You made her swear,” Roxas said to Lea, chuckling.

“This week cannot end soon enough,” Lea whinged and turned back to bear witness to the imminent demise of the home he’d spent years making his.

“It’s inadvisable to stand in the cold for too long,” Xion said. “Suggestion: acquire more layers of clothing or go inside.”

“Go eat more bark,” Lea groaned. “You’re not helping.”

“I have a plan. The hostile machines must be eliminated,” Xion said.

“Yeah? With what? My bare hands?” Lea asked.

“Negative. Such a plan would result in Fuck-Sake’s demise.”

Roxas chuckled.

“Please stand back,” Xion told both Roxas and Lea. “I will make them leave the premises.”

“Wha– no, no no, no,  _no_ !” Lea tried to grab Xion before she left the safety of the dead forest.

Xion would walk straight into the cops. They’d subdue her, disassemble her and make a killing and Lea wouldn’t see a dime. Life couldn’t be that unfair. No one in the history of ever had seen two Cores in their life aside from Lea. And yet, there he stood, amongst rotting tree trunks, about to lose everything he had and everything he could’ve had. All in one cruel swoop.

Xion moved in the shadows and stopped right by the edge of an incoming searchlight. She didn’t move when the Metal Bird stopped in its tracks and the searchlight shifted color from white to the ominous red that was always followed by the positioning of its barrels. Yet, as long as the Metal Bird was fooled into seeing it as human, there was hope for the Core. Lea searched for the silver lining. If the Bird shot at it thinking it was human, at least it would aim for the head.

The Metal Bird fired rounds and rounds of shots. The shattering of each shot and the explosions that followed made Lea flinch like he’d done as a child, running through the maze of piles in his foil cape to disorient the machines.

The Metal Bird’s lights turned off. It remained airborne as it seemed to chock itself. One by one, each light along its side switched on. However this time the lights showed a calming green as it flew in circles over Xion. Without prompting, it readied its barrels aimed at an incoming Metal Bird. It shot twice and flew away, shoving another Metal Bird away from its path, successfully turning into the bait. 

The flock flew over the Yellow Zone, a mess of colorful dots until they flew past the border of the Red Zone and over the beautiful field of grass on the other side. Each one of them dropped out of the sky and exploded on impact within seconds. Lea gasped at the spectacle, amazed and horrified by the toxicity of paradise.

Xion turned around and waved for Lea and Roxas.

“Mission accomplished. The hostile machines have been eliminated. Suggestion: enter the facility before the temperature drops further.”

“Wuah, Xion, that was awesome!” Roxas skipped out of their hiding place.

They snuck into the tin shack. Lea grabbed any thin mattress that had survived the blast, along with a few blankets to build a make-shift bed on the floor of his bedroom. It was big enough to fit Roxas and Xion. With the covers over their heads, it blended into the mess of the whole shack and would give them time to run if the cops decided to swing by after all. 

Lea dragged a plastic chair into the room and sat down in a corner while Roxas curled up on the blankets, mindful of the bruised side of his face. Meanwhile, Xion searched through a small pile of Lea’s T-shirts and pants to wear. She found a black T-shirt and burgundy, stretchy pants which she pulled up to her armpits.

“Perfect,” she said, her voice breaking between a light and dark tone.

She handed Lea his jacket.

“No, you can wear it. It’s gonna be a cold one,” Lea said, rubbing his eyes. The adrenaline was wearing off.

“I don’t freeze.”

“Right… Roxas might-” Lea began.

“I can generate enough heat to keep Roxas warm. Fuck-Sake will need this more than us.”

Lea chuckled tiredly and took the jacket back. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And, uh, Xion? I’m Lea.”

“Would you like me to overwrite your name in the database?”

“Please.” Lea smiled.

“Request confirmed. Fuck-Sake has been replaced with Lea. Good night, Lea.”

“Good night, Xion.”

  


***

A loud monster growled in the room. Lea dropped his head from his hands and rose to his feet, still half asleep when the sound of his jacket hitting the chair startled him awake. He picked up one loose foot of his old bed and raised it over his head, ready to attack as he searched the room for the monster until his stomach rumbled again. He flopped back down on the chair and rubbed his eyes. Hunger was the worst companion to wake up to in the morning. Nothing that loud was without lies. Lea could smell a heated skillet and the Spam frying in its own oils. He’d put up with Isa and his weird family again if he could just wolf down the whole breakfast table until his skin gave way and he exploded like a Metal Bird.

“Roxas,” Lea mumbled. “Wake up. We gotta go to the Village and see if they saved some Spam for you.”

Roxas didn’t answer. He should’ve beamed out of bed; he was the one who wanted to check up on his friends.

“Hey, you bum, wake up,” Lea tried again, but was forced to get up when Roxas didn’t reply.

Neither Roxas nor Xion were in the room. Lea leaned against the wall, about to lose everything he hadn’t eaten, his knees too weak to stumble out to the living area to check whether his fears had come true or not.

“Lea,” Roxas said from behind him. “What are you yelling about?”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Lea breathed and pulled Roxas in for a hug.

“Lea! You’re messing up my hair,” Roxas struggled halfheartedly until Lea let go. “Xion’s made breakfast and she won’t let me have your share.”

“Breakfast? Made of what?” Lea asked as he was dragged out of the room.

He expected chopped bark sprinkled over a legless and slanted table in the middle of the disaster from yesterday. Lea stopped by the doorway, mouth agape. His trophy shelves were back in place with every can he had ever found unbuckled and lined up. The plastic dining set with a small table for two, a chair, and a stool, stood firm with newly reapplied duct tape. Atop the table, on a piece of folded cloth, was the heated skillet Lea had dreamed of with enough Spam for three.

Xion sat by the table, one leg folded underneath her. Her hair hung in a ponytail off to the side, accentuating the bald spot and the locks of hair underneath it.

“Good afternoon, Lea,” she smiled. “We made breakfast.”

Roxas carried the chair from Lea’s bedroom and sat down by the table while Lea slowly made his way to the stool.

“Where’d you find this?” Lea asked, struggling against the quiver his lips threatened with. He rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat.

“There’s a man in a village with a store,” Xion began.

“We don’t have money,” Lea interrupted, his voice still thick.

“… he doesn’t know Xion,” Roxas said. “He thought she was new. While he tried to convince her to go to the orphanage… I stole a can.”

“Three,” Xion said and held up her hands to show Lea the size of the cans.

“That’s incredibly dangerous,” Lea began as he helped himself to a serving of Spam, “and incredibly slick. Don’t do it again.”

"We won't," Roxas said and straightened his back proudly anyway.

Rain pattered against the thin metal roof. With the workshop exposed to the elements, each raindrop bounced against a piece of Lea’s legacy with a taunting metallic flick that'd make repairing them that much harder. Lea hoped their guttling would mask the worst of it, and by focusing on it, he heard the crunching from Xion.

"You've got rocks in your bowl?" Lea joked.

"I have bark from the trees outside. I need to complete the analysis."

"They're dead. What else do you need to know?"

"The reason why."

A knock froze them all in their seats. There was only one type of company they could expect, be it for the thievery of Spam or parts: the clowns and the Birds.

"What do we do?" Roxas asked, eyes wide.

“I will greet them,” Xion said determined. She took a step toward the door, but Lea got up and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Absolutely not.” Lea pushed her back gently. “Go hide in the bedroom, behind what’s left of the bed, under the covers," Lea said urgently.

"Lea, come with us," Roxas pleaded.

“But the singing‒” Xion insisted.

"Go I said." Lea pointed to his room.

He gave Roxas and Xion enough time to hide, counting the third and fourth knocks, anxious for the fifth that would knock the door down and come with fire.

"Coming," Lea called and lingered by the door before pulling it open to face the execution squad. The sight which greeted him instead made him wish for the clowns he'd been expecting.

"Didn't think you'd be so sentimental," Isa said and gave the house a sweeping glance. "I thought you would've preferred the red barrels over my old place."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Lea demanded, his frown sour.

Isa held a large box under his arm. A stark yellow flower stuck out with a dark, furry middle. In his other hand he held two canisters Lea remembered from their past.

"I'll be honest with you," Isa began.

"Yeah, that'd be best," Lea warned.

"You've drawn a lot of attention to yourself, Lea. More than what's advisable. I've been asked to spy on you and find out what you're hiding,” Isa explained plainly.

“You might kick the bucket before getting any answers,” Lea pointed to the canisters. “Can’t imagine the air here’s gonna do you any good.”

“Orders are orders,” Isa said with a brand of bravery that could only be purchased with money.

“I thought you ran a restaurant,” Lea said unimpressed.

“Are you gonna let me in?” Isa’s polite tone had a sharpness to it, the only crack in his facade.

“What if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll kick the bucket before I do. Probably by tomorrow.”

Lea hesitated before he stepped back in resignation and allowed Isa inside the house. Isa stopped a few steps in to take in the sights, hoping perhaps he’d see anything familiar, blissfully unaware that Lea had smashed every belonging Isa had left behind to dull the ache of Isa’s betrayal. Some of it had made for great kindles, like Isa’s books and diaries.

Lea glanced out the door before closing and locking it.

“So who’d you manage to piss off for an assignment like this?” Lea prodded.

“No one.”

“Is that why you were sent here? Unable to breathe, without any protection, not even a bird… no one likes you here. You’ve got nothing but enemies, so either you pissed someone powerful off or that nerve agent got to your brain.”

“Guess we’ll never know,” Isa shrugged. “Do you live here alone?”

“I get visits.” Lea fidgeted.

“Do you normally serve that much food?” Isa walked up to the table where they had left breakfast and put the box down to stick his fingers into the bowl with wood chips. The frown on his face almost made Lea laugh. “I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard, Lea, but this isn’t good for you,” he said.

“I eat whatever the fuck I want.”

“I’ll make you something.”

“Don’t need it. As you can see, I’ve already eaten. I’m full.”

Isa sighed and searched the room once more. “Did Terra leave any of his notebooks here?”

“I threw all of the trash out.”

Isa opened his mouth to say something back when there was another knock on the door.

“What now?” Lea muttered and swung the door open.

Roxas stood there, stick in his hand and Xion at his side, away from Isa’s line of sight.

“Hey, Lea!” he said a little too loud to distort his voice and tried to peek over Lea’s shoulder. “Long time no see. I have to show you something.”

“Are you stupid?” Lea mouthed. “What is it?”

“I want to meet the song.” Xion tried to move past Roxas, but Roxas held onto her wrist.

“A turd.”

Lea shook his head in disbelief. If this was some sort of misguided plan to save him from Isa, it would lead them to doom. Roxas grabbed Lea by the arm, pulled him out and closed the door before Isa could move from the table.

“Xion felt a little bad and I thought who wouldn’t after eating rotting wood,” Roxas rambled as they walked to the scene of the deed. “So I told her, the ditch is around the back, but looks like it was an emergency. We hurried, but didn’t get to the ditch, she went behind the bushes and, well…” Roxas moved some branches aside with the stick in his hand to reveal the turd.

Lea wasn’t one to avert his gaze at the sight of waste. Keeping tabs on it was an important part of being a decent person. Stool was usually the first place where one could tell disease had set in. There were few diseases that could be cured, and those with a cure had to be caught early.

Lea crouched and moved in closer for a proper look. He had put her back together. If his work had been shoddy, there might be bio components leaking. Granted, it had never occurred to him that a machine would be given the ability to shit.

“How’d you get out of my room?” Lea asked and took the stick from Roxas.

“I had to push open a side of the wall,” Xion said and crouched next to Lea. “It was an emergency.”

“Yeah,” Lea said and gave it a poke. The dark mass disintegrated like wet coal, a stark contrast to the barren sand. “That can’t be right.”

“That’s soil, isn’t it?” Roxas asked, amazed.

“It is best suited for birch trees,” Xion informed them. “Acidic level is between five and six. More is required for the complete growth of a tree.”

Both Lea and Roxas turned to look at her.

“I thought you were a weapon,” Lea said astounded.

“I can fight,” Xion said. “Destruction is part of my programming, but creation and maintenance is my objective. I have to find more materials to turn into suitable soil.”

“I think we can sort something out,” Lea said thoughtfully as he stood up.

Isa’s intrusion wouldn’t be a complete waste.

  



End file.
